Why we stopped irrigating in 1994

In the summer of 1994 the pump at the bottom of the hill gave out in July, and nobody had the money to fix it. We watched the vines through August expecting the worst. They lost a few leaves and gave us half a crop, and the wine from that year is still the best thing in the cellar. The roots had gone looking for water in the limestone, and they found more than water. We never fixed the pump. Thirty years later the vines go down further than we can measure, and the grapes taste of the rock they grow from.