Once upon a time “Gratte qui n’a” …

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Grattequina used to be an island.

This island doesn’t exist anymore. In 1860, it has been decided to reduce the width of the river in order to facilitate the navigation. An embankment has been built between the island and the shore to boost mud sediment.

Year after year, more mud gathered, the island disappeard and the shore widened. In 1872 a new building appeared on this new shore, this building is the hotel today. It used to be the family house of the former owners. They lived in downtown Bordeaux and came at Grattequina during the weekend to enjoy some peace and quiet.

Grattequina has been agricultural lands for centuries, its name comes from « Gratte qui n’a » which means « to plow in order to get/to be able to cultivate ». Indeed, in order to have results, people had to often plow the land because the soil was particulary hard. Crops often varied, there have been grapevine, fruit trees…

champs-grattequina

In 1987, the Hue family, farmers from the North of Paris et actual owners of the property, bought the estate and continued the agricultural activity by cultivating chickpea, spelt, different kind of wheat etc…

Those crops are now organic.[:]