Tuesday 1 October
And so, having spent every waking hour, and sleeping hour as well (in my dreams) stripping the leaves off around the grapes and cutting off the bits we don’t want to have harvested, what happens? It hails! Oh no! All those beautiful vulnerable grapes so carefully exposed to the elements! Oh no indeed. But apparently the hail fell only on the office, and ignored our mauzac, still sitting out there, completely exposed, patiently waiting to be harvested.
It came as part and parcel of an enormous downpour, which did not ignore the biodiversity students who were out there too, happily waving their nets around the vines and counting up the bounty in their traps. We watched a bedraggled, dripping wet mess of them straggle back to the courtyard and into their cars. But everyone and everything untouched by hail, thank goodness.
Thursday October 3
Now we’re on the home stretch! We all meet at the mauzac field, to bring in the last grapes for Occitania. The weather is cool and bracing, perfect to spur everyone onwards and upwards. Jan is optimistic that we’ll finish the field in a day, but it soon becomes evident we won’t. There is something odd going on, and we don’t quite understand it: Team Christine is way ahead of everyone, positively champing at the bit and storming ahead. The stars of our show, Siti and Safina, are lagging and straggling behind.
And so indeed, we don’t finish. We will pick up the loose ends tomorrow morning.
Friday October 4
The ultimate beginning to the ultimate day!
How beautiful it is this morning!
What a way to end.
The mood is high, and before noon the job is done.
Harvest 2019 has ended.
We walk back through the harvested vines. Siti and Safina have the sense to take buckets with them on the way back, to fill with grapes that have been overlooked. It is very difficult to harvest green grapes on leafy green vines, almost impossible to find them all. We notice this gesture, and appreciate it. And then we gather in the courtyard as the last trailer pulls up.
And that’s it: the end of 2019. But 2019’s not over … because there’s still one hectare of chenin blanc hanging out there, hoping for a happy harvest a month or two down the road. If all goes well.
Wednesday 16 October
All the action has moved indoors now, into the cellars where Jan Ailbe goes about pumping, fermenting, filling, emptying, transferring, climbing up and down the tanks like a monkey, measuring, testing, tasting , talking to the barrels … all with quiet concentration and no desire at all for any kind of interruption or company.
The wines are definitely on their way!
Friday 18 October
We’re working like mad on our 2019 wines, nannying them into existence, but today we learn that there’
s a world beyond, and there are also our wines beyond. Torn between saying this is real Dutch treat … or Double Dutch, two major Dutch publications printed wonderful tasting notes on the Chardonnay we made last year. One of them is a compilation by Holland’s only three Masters of Wine who have come up with a masterly book on the wines available in that country. The other is from Harold Hamersma, writer, reviewer, broadcaster, and television personality. Both praised Odyssée 2018, which was a nice bonus for us, and a bit of a vindication of our cellar master’s work in such a miserable year. The three Masters of Wine guessed the shelf price of Odyssée, as well as our entry level Chardonnay which also made the cut for their exclusive selection, and priced them both several euros more than they actually sell for.
So do we congratulate ourselves on our amazing price/quality ratio?
Or do we do the sensible thing, and bump our prices up to where they should be ….?
Thursday 24 October
And more nice comments about our “remarkable wines” come our way today, this time from the French daily newspaper Le Figaro, which published the 10 top wine stops in France made by its wine-exploring writer, Jean-Baptiste Ancelot.
And one of them is Rives-Blanques.
Where life continues centred around the cellar. All our harvest toys are washed, wrapped up, and put away for another year. All the barrels, excepting for one lot, have stopped fermenting. Things are really looking pretty good.
Tuesday 29 October:
Big day today ! Little bottles of wine are neatly lined up on the glass table in the tasting room. Pierre Roque, our tasting consultant, rolls in on a big smile. We’re not doing much today, but it is the first time we’re seriously looking at what this vintage is capable of.
First the Blanquette, which is quickly dispatched. It is clear to us that it needs no chardonnay or chenin blanc added to it. And it is clear that it needs no sugar either. This is crying out loud and clear to be a 100% zero dosage mauzac. Of course we may change our minds before putting it in the bottle for its second fermentation in just over a month, but somehow, I don’t think so. It’s delicious. In short, delicious. I would like to record for once and for all, that 2019 will be the Year of The Blanquette.
Then we move onto our entry-level chardonnay. The free-run juice is absolutely wonderful, but the really good surprise is that the press is also very good. We play around with various blends and soon come to agreement. That’s a very, very nice Pays d’Oc we’ve got up our sleeves, there.
So altogether, a great morning!
…/to be continued.