August didn’t come to Rives-Blanques until the moon struck mid month: then the quietly pressing matter of the harvest became more insistently pressing. That is when we returned to France from Ireland where Jan had been sailing his little dinghy of the Ette class, called BlanquEtte (of course). The truth is that BlanquEtte didn’t […]
Ouf! as they say in French. It’s all fireworks and brimstone this month: there’s the 4th of July and there is the Quatorze de Juillet. And then there is also a catastrophe of cataclysmic proportions as hail sweeps over vast tracts of the Minervois, Cabardes, Malepere and Carcassonne, wiping out between 20% – 100% […]
Some times you enjoy good weather. Some times you love it to bits. Right now, we are loving it to bits. Good weather well timed is 喜喜, that is, double happiness. Happiness twice over, or whatever. There is some point in good weather when you don’t need it; but there is every point when you do. […]
May Day An enigma in this month’s La Revue du Vin de France: Mille et mille. Smectite. Monos. 5ha. Cadel aime la flèche which translates roughly into “A thousand and a thousand. Smectite. Single varietals. Cadel loves the arrow”. None of which makes any sense to me. An email arrives. “Are you the enigma in […]
Spring comes to Rives-Blanques skyful of birdsong. We sit on tattered wicker chairs watching the sun sink behind the mountains … and into our glasses of Blanquette de Limoux. They shimmer with light. “This is what life’s all about” Jan says happily, lifting his glass to his lips. In this complete, bird-punctuated silence, you can […]