Thursday September 9
The Guide Hachette 2022 is published today. Granddaddy of wine guides, it is universally respected but not universally loved. Sometimes they ignore brilliant wines – but some times they get it just right. (Particularly when they like your own wines….). But that’s the nature of wine guides, wine competitions and wine critics: it can all be quite a subjective affair.
Subjectively, I love what they write about Rives-Blanques in this new edition. We have “a lovely complicity with Chenin’ they said. We could not, and would not have been able to say it better. Objectively I love it too, because it hits the nail right on the head and is a perfect expression of the overall truth. Or what we see as the overall truth.
We do love Chenin, and it loves being here too.
And we are very pleased that it was awarded two stars. And our Odyssée one star, and its little brother the Pays d’Oc one star as well. That’s not a bad cull from the world’s most respected wine guide.
Subjectively speaking – and objectively speaking as well.
Friday September 10
This is no joke, and we don’t even congratulate ourselves for getting off lightly.
Today, on the eve of Harvest 2021, between 100-160 ml of rain fell just 10 minutes away from us. That is just about the worst thing that could happen to any wine grower at this point in time. We got 30 ml, which is … nothing.
Many of the vignerons who were affected can’t even get into their fields. Deep ravines have formed between the vines, making it impossible to go in with a tractor, harvesting machine, or even hand-harvesters, come to it. And the soil is sodden.
The problem is that unforgivingly humid conditions are forecast, which is the last thing anyone wants. If the Marin blows. the wind from the Mediterranean which is indeed humid, horrid and headachy, then we too face big decisions, even with just 30 ml of rain in the vineyard.
Saturday September 11
We read the acidity and sugar levels of the grapes, by taking random samples in the vineyard. The grapes are not quite ready, not at the optimum point we need. But what to do? Bad weather is forecast, can we risk it? Do you let them hang and be hung yourself, or do you pick them early but healthy … and be damned?
Monday 12 September
Suddenly everyone needs the harvesting machine, because everyone is worried about mildew and botrytis, a grape rot which is encouraged by humid conditions. And it is very humid. Everyone wants to bring their white grapes in as fast as possible. The forecast continues to forecast rain.
Tuesday 13 September
And we’re off! Sébastien, a wine grower in the village who has a spanking new harvesting machine, can fit us in today. That, after having harvested all night long elsewhere. We would have preferred to machine harvest at night as well, when it is cooler and beneficial to the grapes, but beggars can’t be choosers. And fortunately, today is overcast and surprisingly cool. So he rolls up, wearing circles under his eyes and a big smile on his face, and we’re off! Harvest 2021 has started, and may God bless all who sail in her.
Excepting it wobbles, stalls, and evens threatens to fall. My iPhone burns with messages from all over the region: a friend in Pic St-Loup had 100 ml of rain early this morning, and their cellars are completely flooded. Another, near Beziers, reports a harvest of only 4 boxes filled with grapes from vines that gave 202 boxes last year. Collioure chips into the conversation with photos of rot on the grapes, caused by this ‘impossible equatorial weather we’ve got”. For good measure, that means tropical, hot, torrid, sweltering; humid, sultry, steamy, sticky, and oppressive …. From the Minervois comes the complaint that the grapes have stalled: not becoming sweeter and less acidic, just sitting there kicking their heels, un-pickable and waiting to be properly hung by impending bad weather.
So what is a broken-down harvesting machine collapsed in the middle of the vineyard in comparison? That’s right, Sèbastien has run into a spot of bother – but he sorts it out and after half an hour, gets going again. We breath a deep collective sigh of relief.
Until the cooling equipment in the cellar breaks down. Now this is truly dramatic, though still not a patch on having your cellar flooded by rivers of water. We ask ourselves briefly which is the least of two evils: be damned by potential bad weather, or be damned by immediate failed technology? The answer seems obvious and we press pause on the harvest, and wait to see what happens.
(The good news we got that more or less sorted out, and eventually romped home pretty late at night but with a beautiful bounty of lovely grapes with a potential of 13%. We can’t complain about Day 1 and we’ll sleep well).
Friday 14 September
Just got this message :
Nous venons d’être informés par Monsieur le Sous-préfet de l’arrondissement de Limoux d’une alerte de Météo France :
« Pour cet après-midi, sur l’Ouest audois (sans plus de précision) de 16h à 24h, localement cumul de 50 à 80 mm avec risque de grêle et de fortes rafales ».
Oh great. We’re being warned about heavy rainfall with strong gusts and risk of hail this evening.
We continue bringing in the grapes as fast as we can. Have to say, they look pretty good. Christophe, co-sorter when he’s not driving the tractor or doing other useful things, dives into the grapes and emerges with a grape-coloured caterpillar.
“C’est très bon, ca ! Put it in oil, and have it with garlic and parsley. Delicious!”
It took a full minute to realise he was joking.
Even so, we make a note to self to remember to look into this. Last year we had hundreds of lady- birds, the year before it was an overload of snails. This year, hardly a one.
Saturday 15 September
The hand-harvesters show up while the countryside is still slumbering. We set to work on the Chardonnay for Odyssée. At the sorting table it’s clear that the deer have got to the grapes before we did. Deer wash their faces and wear gloves to dine, delicately nibbling away at this grape here and that grape there. Wild boar, on the other hand, don’t even use a knife and fork. We see clear evidence of this as well on the sorting table.
The weather’s holding out, amazingly. Just as we finish, a fine drizzle starts falling. We plan to press on (excuse the pun) tomorrow.
Sunday 16 September
Finally a beautiful day! Harvest-perfect. We bring in the Chenin blanc. There is some minor grumbling from the rank and file, who believe we’re harvesting too soon. We should brave it out, they say.
The management says there’s no option. Terrible weather forecast for next week. Heavy rainfall. We’ll lose the grapes.
Oh dear: pick and be damned, or let hang and be hung.
The grumbles continue, but they make no difference. Someone drops a secateur on the sorting table, and everything grinds to a halt as we hunt for it in mounds of grapes already in the press. Tempers are becoming a tiny bit frayed.
But that all disappears as if waved away by a magic wand, when looking for an excuse to sit down, I sit down and open the computer, there to see the most wonderful reviews of our 2020 wines by Jancis Robinson MW herself. She’s the first person to review them, and they came through her scrutiny smiling. We too. Particularly the chenin blanc which we are harvesting this very minute. Nothing could be more encouraging or better timed. So here’s to you, Mrs Robinson!
And the sun shines on. And the wind is cool and fresh.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Monday September 17
Tomorrow is today and it brings a cloudy sky, a bit of drizzle, and in retrospect, we could easily have continued harvesting. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day …
Tuesday September 18
No, it isn’t. Tomorrow is today and we’re up bright and early, ready to get cracking on the Mauzac. Only problem is, the harvesters don’t show up. This is unbelievable. It’s unprecedented. And it’s a result of having outsourced the organisation of the harvest team … which theoretically, really simplifies things. It gives someone else the responsibility for making sure the harvesters show up, are correctly paid, all their documentation is in order, their taxes are properly paid, and so on, and that someone else is paid well to do the job. That’s the idea. But who needs ideas when you have a field of Mauzac waiting to be harvested, and the explanation is that the boss man forgot?
Wednesday September 19
Well, today is today, and it came on schedule – so did the harvesters… but only just over half of the promised team. Honestly, I ask you. So friends who were courageous enough – or foolish enough – to visit us during this period were also put to work.
Mauzac is no fun to pick. It lies in wait somewhere in the heart of the bush vine, and it requires the eye of a seasoned game ranger to spot the merest flicker of movement as the breeze gently stirs the grapes.
It’s back-breaking work as well.
The sorting table is pretty tiring too, because there’s quite a lot to sort.
The grapes are very mixed, showing different degrees of ripeness. Of all our fields, this is the one that has suffered the most from the vagaries of this harvest. But at least the weather is brilliant and we call it a day, for logistical reason, when the press is full enough to begin the business of pressing.
Thursday September 20
Pre-harvest: all the “hottes” in the hot spot waiting for the pickers and porters
And today we finish off and hang up our hottes. Just like that. Another brilliant, blameless day. The harvest is over, though we feel we’ve hardly begun. The weather wasn’t a problem in the end, though the threat of it was. That, and knowing how much misery it was wreaking elsewhere. None of our three separate weather forecasts ever got it quite right for us.
There was just enough Mauzac left to fill the press and get it going. Our reduced team of harvesters trailed off, and then that was that. Not like the old days at all.
The Chardonnay and Chenin are wonderful, the Mauzac less so – but overall, we are relaxed and happy.
We celebrate with a glass of pink fizz called Bella, made by Bride Valley, home of the late and wonderful Steven Spurrier. It is a supreme moment of complete relaxation.
Weather forecast tomorrow doesn’t look good … but who cares?
Monday 27 September
And now the vintage comes into being. After a year of silence, some of the barrels are beginning to break into song. Fermentation is under way, and our annual arithmetic equation adding up exactly as it should: water + sunshine = wine …