It’s a cliché to say the nights are drawing in like a wooly blanket, and the wind has a glacial, steely look to its eye, but there is no denying that winter is here, however you say it. We’re steaming ahead with the pruning, and all hands are on board – and what hardy hands they are too. Not everyone could do this work under these conditions. It’s also a bit of cliché to say that pruning is “the noblest job of all”, as reported by our local newspaper, but that too is true. Everything depends on it. The Pyrenees have artfully draped themselves across our horizon under very becoming layers of snow, which is falling at 800 m as we speak (our highest point is nearly 400m). Benson points his Springer nose southwards, and sniffs the approaching snow appreciatively.
Friday December 3
One of the top American wine magazines, Wine Spectator, gives us an unexpected early-Christmas present in its latest issue. Odyssée, our Limoux chardonnay has been chosen for its “Savvy Shopper” selection. Very neat timing, just before Christmas.
The only problem is, we have none left. And we have no Dédicace left. And we have no Blanquette left. So what kind of a Christmas is this going to be? Rives-Blanques without bubbles is about as festive as a Christmas tree without baubles.
Fortunately, the next batch of fizz is due for disgorgement about now, so they will be flowing again shortly. But the rest has to rest until it is ready, probably about next May.
Wednesday December 8
Good reason to trompette our own trumpet again: our fizz, Blanquette de Limoux appears in the American magazine, Wine Enthusiast as one of its top sparkling wines of the year, and here’s the drumroll: it’s also been chosen as The Editor’s Choice.
Friday December 10
The snow is creeping ever closer. Today our view has closed in under a curtain of rain, but we know it’s there, the snow creeping closer and quietly sliding further down the mountains day by day. Which is fine because it’s winter, and winter should be cold. And it’s Christmas, and Christmas should be white …
The head of the association of independent wine growers of our region published his report today, reminding us, though we need no reminding, that Vintage 2021 was quite unlike any other any of us has ever known, one we’ll never forget, and will “always remember for its complicated climate conditions”. Almost everyone in France had a relatively low, completely un-homogenous yield, “but we in the Aude also suffered the vagaries of frost and drought”, he said, adding ‘but it was a very Good Vintage” …
Yes, it was a difficult year for everyone, in many ways, and yes our yield was low, and yes the physical state of our grapes was excellent…. and yes, our Mauzac suffered badly from the year’s climatic caprices. Which means we’ll be short of Blanquette for some time … but knowing what other people have gone through, we really shouldn’t allow ourselves the luxury of complaining.
The amazing Andrew Jefford who writes for Decanter magazine puts the year in perspective: ‘the very existence of a bottle (of wine from this vintage) is a triumph over extreme misfortune”.
Monday December 20
The 5 du Vin, a hotshot group of Francophone wine writers, feature Limoux’s Blanquette de Limoux, nicely in the time for the fêtes. We are very glad to be among the chosen few with our “very fine” Blanquette and its “very fine bubbles”. That is very fine indeed, thank you!
And with that, we wish all our kith and kin, friends, customers, colleagues and fellow travellers, very bonnes fêtes indeed!
(As for us, it was Christmas à la Covid: locked out of England and then locked down in Amsterdam, the family elders in Holland met up with offspring and offspring’s offspring by Zoom in the UK. Fortunately in Zoomland, you don’t have to wear a mask.)
…./to be continued in 2022.