VINE LINES JULY – AUGUST 2013 A regular newsletter on the wines, vines and times at Rives-Blanques Our whole plateau held its breath the whole day yesterday, waiting for the storm that never came. That is the story of this year so far: a breath-taking roller coaster ride. We have had a cold, wet spring, […]
VINE LINES JUNE-JULY 2013 A regular newsletter on the wines, vines and times at Rives-Blanques This month there is good news and there is bad news. Village elders around here believe that if it rains on St.Médard (8 June) there will be forty days of rain to follow. But the good news is, if there […]
VINE LINES December 2012 A monthly newsletter on the wines, vines and times at Rives-Blanques We had it all, this year: heart-stopping moments of extreme cold, extreme heat, late flowering, hail in the neighbourhood just before the harvest, low sugar levels, threat of mildew … and then suddenly the vintage pulled itself together and came […]
The party’s over. Last week the last barrel sighed its last long, slow, sigh of fermentation and settled down into silent slumber. Millions of grapes have been picked, sorted and pressed; one hundred thousand litres of liquid sunshine have fermented and been transformed into wine. And this year, it was all pretty painless. Quantity is […]
Yes, we are keeping our heads down: Harvest 2012 is upon us! This comes to you from the eye of the storm, a lull between the machine harvesting last week and the hand harvesting this week and next. And no, we are not counting our grapes before they’re picked. Rather, we are counting […]