Tuesday March 9
Saddened to tears to read that Steven Spurrier died today, at Bride Valley in Dorset.
The world knows him as portrayed by Alan Rickman in that film called Bottle Shock, about the Judgement of Paris, the famous 1970’s showdown Steven organised between Bordeaux and Napa wines (won by the Americans), and that is so unfair. Steven is much more handsome, Hugh Grant would have been a much better choice. And Steven was also so clever, so enterprising, so entertaining, and so enthusiastic. He is also very modest, and so, so, unbelievably kind. I just wish we hadn’t left it too late to say a proper “thank you” to him for all he did for us.
We first met him nearly 20 years ago at our first big international wine fair in London, where, given the clue to look out for the best-dressed man in town, I alighted on the most likely pink-shirted, cufflinked, pochette-pocketted, Crockett & Jones-shoed and silk-socked man in sight … and sure enough.
Such an unpropitious beginning, but he was like that and didn’t hold it against us or our wines: democratic, open and open-minded to a fault, inquisitive and very generous. An absolute giant in the wine world, albeit a gentle – and gentlemanly – one. And all of us in it, from the great to the small, have lost their best Ambassador, and their best friend.
Thursday 11 March
A lovely morning in the cellars tasting the individual barrels of Chenin blanc and Mauzac.
One barrel of chenin didn’t make the grade. The rest were perfect.
All the Mauzac shone.
I put the tasting glass down on a barrel, and the wine looked back at unblinkingly and with dazzling clarity.
Bright, crystalline, brilliant, gleaming, coruscatingly clean … and delicious!
Saturday March 13
Today is a day we can’t let go by without reference. On this same Saturday exactly a year ago, our daughter and her husband decided to exile themselves from London, where they both work. Their bosses said, why not?, but didn’t take their concerns very seriously. They arrived on our doorstep tomorrow, exactly a year ago, just before breakfast, and the day before France closed itself to the outside world and went into ‘confinement’. And in the year in between then and now, their daughter was born in Carcassonne, and most of the world went into meltdown.
We thought then that it would be for a few months. We kept our distance from each other for two weeks, stayed outside and had our apéros in the garden dressed in ski gear. We played a lot of a Finnish garden game called Mölki, and became quite vicious at it.
And we never thought we’d be here together now, exactly a year later, playing a game of Mölki for old time’s sake, having a take-away from our local Odalisque restaurant with a couple of mystery bottles for blind-tasting, to mark the occasion. The baby dominates the conversation at the table, and the whole family is together. A whole year later! Who would have thought it?
Like wine, it seems that life is absolutely unpredictable.
Wednesday March 17
Today’s one of those glorious but very blustery, cold days. Sandra and Christophe are at the Tournié field, appropriately surrounded by clover on this Saint Patrick’s Day ; it’s actually a miracle they’re not blown right off it. About 3% of the chenin vines we planted there exactly a year ago didn’t survive their first year, and they are being replaced by new vines. There’s plenty of time for chatting, or rather, for throwing half sentences at each other before they’re whipped off by the wind. Christophe hoes around the hole, and Sandra plants the replacement. Jan’s quietly worried: Sandra loves to talk, and Christophe is a man of few words.
That apparently works very well.
“He’s a good man” she confides to Jan, at the end of the day. “He’s okay, we can relax”.
Jan particularly like the ‘we’ bit.
She then suggests, obliquely, that perhaps ‘we’ could give him a bottle of wine after such a hard day’s work? “I don’t drink”, she said she had told Christophe, “but here they don’t give wine. They help in other ways. It’s a different culture, you know. If I need the jeep, they lend it to me. Or if my caravan’s stuck, they come and help me get it going …”
But obviously, after due consideration, she decided that really Christophe should be rewarded with a bottle.
So that’s what “we” did.
Of course.
Tuesday 23 March
Jan brings up a bottle of the freshly today-blended Occitania, and one of Dédicace. As Jan-Ailbe says with a satisfied smile, they’re both fine and fined.
And ready to be bottled next month.
We love both wines. This is an exciting moment, because blending from barrel samples doesn’t always deliver the final product. (Mind you, the final product doesn’t always deliver itself until it’s safely home and hosed, and in the bottle.). Now we have in front of us what will really go into the bottle, and we try to be critical.
Both wines are a bit out of the range of most of our previous vintages, but very much within the profile of the last two years. There’s still that wonderful acidity that characterises our terroir. They’re a bit more alcoholic than usual, but actually, absolutely delicious.
We think. But then, maybe we would anyway.
Saturday March 27
What a dreadfully sad day. Bacchus, our aged, lovely, and much loved old labrador died, after spending a terrible night suffering the side effects of an injection given to him in a last-ditch attempt to help alleviate the pain his arthritis.
There is a huge Bacchus-shaped hole in our hearts, even in Benson’s, the ebullient, incorrigible springer spaniel who has long coveted Bacchus’ place as the no. 1 dog. Benson is clearly in mourning, just as we are.
Xaxa put up a post on Facebook and Instagram; astonishing the number of condolences and reminiscences pouring in from all over the world, hundreds of them, from Budapest to the Antilles, and everything to the right and left of that line; from journalists and wine professionals to friends, and customers. In his gentle, kind and benign way, Bacchus has left an indelible footprint at Rives-Blanques and is fondly remembered by just about everyone who has ever been here.
As one of them said, “an absolute darling of a dog”.