THE HISTORY OF BLANCPAIN

ART DE VIVRE
“When I was seven I was sent away as a
servant to look after the livestock. We had
enough countryside to live in, but there were
11 of us kids so … no school. Times were
hard, make no mistake! We were always in
the forest, looking for wood to make equipment:
tools, panniers, stalls for the cattle,
roofing shingles, household furniture –
everything was made of wood. In autumn
we gathered leaves to make winter bedding
for the animals. The forest provided everything,
and we made everything by hand.”
After many adventures through the Italian
forests of the Abruzzi – home to wolves and
bears – and the French forests of the Vosges
and the Landes, he ended up in the Joux
Valley. He’s evidently found his heaven-onearth
in the Risoud forest.
“Do you see that little spruce there?” he
asks.
No, I don’t see it. It’s hidden by bracken
twice its height. I could easily have trodden
it flat. Not Lorenzo, despite his heavy boots,
he moves like a cat, careful of the smallest
shoot. He knows every corner of his forest,
finds the small firs and makes them a bed in
which to grow. The forest is his garden.
It takes time to grow into a resonance
spruce. The ones under Lorenzo’s protection
and care today will be felled in three or four
hundred years. The value of the wood from
the Risoud forest is its slow growth in a
harsh climate. Holding back its resources
because of the long, bitter winters, the trees
have a growing season of only two or three
months. This summer, our infant tree has
grown three centimetres. The same species
on the lowland plains would have put on 60
centimetres or more. The difference is apparent
in the grain of the wood. The most
patient of the Risoud spruces end up in the
skilled hands of the violin-maker.
Lorenzo caresses his trees; he measures
them with his arms. He knows more than
anyone about their essential ecological function.
So his voice sometimes turns sad, and
it’s not without asperity that he rails against
those who “no longer understand the for-