Sunday September 2
They just keep coming and coming and we keep enjoying and enjoying for as long as it lasts. We’ve had such wonderful reviews in The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, Decanter, Jancis Robinson and now today, The Sunday Times. All in the space of a month or two.
This time it’s our un-oaked Chenin blanc in the limelight, Aude à la Joie, which we made in 2016. It doesn’t look as if harvest 2018 will give us a chance to repeat this lovely wine.
A pun, of course, on the Aude Valley and the favourite bit of Beethoven’s 9th used by the EU as its anthem, Ode to Joy. Amazing how many people don’t get it, even when explained. What we don’t explain is that 50 cents of each bottle has gone to help pay for a scholarship for an MA at SOAS, for a displaced person.
Just a little message in a bottle, which makes us enjoy even more seeing it in today’s Sunday Times.
Monday September 3
The harvest has started, somewhat earlier than we had thought even a fortnight ago. The hot weather and sparse number of grapes have combined to boost the sugar levels at an alarmingly rapid rate. We normally expect to gain about one degree per week in potential alcohol, but suddenly it’s started going up 2 or even 3 degrees a week in parts of Limoux. So we’ve decided to strike before the iron gets too hot …
Dany, of course, arrives before we – or the sun – have even got out of bed, and is roaring to go. The ex-Legionnaire has lost none of his trappings in the course of the year that has passed since the last harvest: singlet, stubble, a broad, lopsided, and distinctly dangerous grin, and his tattoos, all present and accounted for. Christine, his ex-wife, has come with her two sons, who, as far as we know, are not his. Florian, the musician, seems to have brought his whole band with him this year. Let’s hope they can make some music with these grapes. Lola is a new face, a pretty dark haired girl with an enormous German Shepherd at her feet. So is the troop of gypsies, excepting for Manu who was here last year and sells Spanish T-shirts from a market stall in real life. They speak a language between them which sounds a bit like Occitan, a bit like Catalan. There is a large sprinkling of hippies, the ‘green people’ as the non-hippie locals call them, and they – not the gypsies – are the owners of the caravans blocking the driveway.
So we attack the mauzac for the Blanquette. There is very little to harvest.. Well, maybe one bunch per vine. We have had it all this year: mildew, hail, and then the boars. They say that as far as mildew in the Languedoc goes, this was the worst year since 1948. If you are organic, as we are, the situation is simply untenable. We’ve also had the wettest spring and the hottest summer that anyone can even remember. Hopeless. So they get through two fields that would normally take us about two days to finish, in a single day. One of the gypsies starts singing a rather pretty, monotonous tune with lots of haunting minor notes in it. Her voice isn’t bad at all, but after several hours of the same, the haunting becomes less and the monotonous becomes more. The sun rises high in the sky and the heat turns full on.
In the cellars we’re having our first-day teething problems. The trailer won’t tip the grapes onto the sorting table. We are all blaming the super souped-up state-of-the-art completely computerised new Fendt tractor, until a technician points out that what it needs is some hydraulic oil (why didn’t it tell us itself, pro-active and electronically bossy as it is?). Unfortunately it is lunchtime by now, and there is none to be got. That solved, the press then refuses to start up again …
« We’re too thinly spread » Jan Ailbe mutters, » we need more hands! »
As if that would help. Maybe what we need is fewer machines …
The first day of our 18th harvest (and Benson’s first, and the Fendt’s first too) ends at midnight.
Tuesday September 4
Again Dany is the first off the starting block, all rise and shine before the sun has even started thinking about it. The news for today is that we’re not harvesting grapes, we’re picking leaves instead. So with infinite patience and unquestioning cooperation, the harvesters troop off and start stripping the vines of the leaves around the grapes. This is to fortify them against any future outbreak of mildew, if the weather forecasters are correct in predicting more humid conditions on the way.
Jan-Ailbe cleans out the cellar and the barrels, to prepare for the Limoux wines that we’ll start harvesting next week. But the hot vapour steriliser packs up and the electrician is called.
« Why do I buy this top-range equipment? » Mr Grumble grumbles. « I invest in it so that we don’t have these problems! But you can check and check, and you can test and test, and they still break down, » he spits out furiously.
« Plus, it’s brand new » he adds, looking ready to kick the offending machine.
Some one is not on our side.
Wednesday September 5
Vaporiser is fixed, but then this morning breaks down again. The manufacturer doesn’t reply to the phone, but does tell us by email that there is no technician within reach, and invites us to send the failing parts by post.
They must be joking.
Fortunately, we are not harvesting today.
Outside the cellars, the weather goes from hot to hotter. Heavy, and quite humid. The Pyrenees are covered, and that is not a good sign. We decide to pick up the thread of the harvest again on Friday or Saturday, depending …
Thursday September 6
It felt as if someone had violently shoved us aside, and then delivered a cruel, sharp slap across the face. We sat bolt upright in bed, aghast. It was the thunder, roaring, rolling, growling and exploding right over head. The rain was pouring down in bucket loads.
Oh no!
At the limits of the Limoux appellation, this morning they reported 50 mL of rain, and heavy hail. We got 19 mL, and thankfully, no hail..
However, the forecast is not good. We consult our three different forecasters to try and find one that gives some good news … and some hope. But there is none.
Jan-Ailbe puts the day to good use and continues cleaning the barrels in preparation for the Limoux wines, which by law have to be fermented and aged in oak. His cellars are pristine and ready to rock and roll. But are the grapes?
Friday 7 September
Raining.
(Sigh)
But by late afternoon, we can bring in one trailer load of mauzac and there’s nothing much wrong with it. In fact, it looks pretty damn good.
If only there were more juice in it.
Over dinner we discuss strategy. Humid conditions are forecast: all we need right now is an outbreak of botrytis, or a bout of mildew. We decide to bring in the last of the mauzac tomorrow, kicking off at 7 a.m.
Fingers crossed.
Saturday 8 September
Today’s grapes are even better than yesterday’s. The mood is lifting! By the skin of our teeth, we’ve managed to bring in enough mauzac to make a decent amount of what will probably be a good Blanquette de Limoux.
But there won’t be enough to make our non-sparkling wine, Occitania, and that really hurts.
It hurts so much that this particular person is ready to burst out crying.
Bt now it’s time to turn our attention to the Chardonnay.
Sunday 9 September
And so, the machine takes over from man, and it doesn’t care that today is Sunday and we are all at work well before the sun rises. It’s cool, but there’s a touch of humidity in the air.
We harvest by machine when it’s cool, usually well before dawn, because that’s important to prevent oxydation.
The machine moves fast, faster this year than ever before, and it seems to be racing up and down the rows of vines at breakneck speed. The funny thing is , though we knew it was coming, it’s taking twice as long to fill up and tip its contents into the trailer, to be trundled down to the cellars, where we are waiting and ready to go at the sorting table. If memory serves correctly, this time last year the tractor would rumble into the cellar reception area bringing a full trailer load of grapes after the machine had plundered about ten rows of vines of their grapes – and that was with the lowest yield we’d ever had from this field. Now it comes in only half full after 18 rows.
Hmm. These are the things you think about when you’re working at the 
sorting table.
We finish the whole plateau in time for a mid-morning tea break, and call it a day.
A lot of good Irish tea goes into making a good French wine.
Monday 10 September
Back to the hand-harvesting. It is early, it is fresh, it is absolutely glorious, and everyone is in a terrific mood.
The sunrise itself is one very compelling reason for starting so early today.
(The coolness is another. But it is the mood of the harvesters that clinches the deal).
We’ve moved on to the field called Les Tres Pechs (the three hillocks), which can be found on the 18th century Cassini map, France’s first complete national map, under that very same name.
The cartographers must have admired this view as much as we do.
Just as the harvesters did, during their coffee break.
(A lot of good coffee goes into making a good French wine.)
But by early afternoon, the day grew so hot that the grapes were beginning to arrive at the sorting table radiating the sunshine, and we decided to draw a line under it for the day.
Tuesday 11 September
Happy Birthday, Jan-Ailbe! May it be a very happy one, starting as it does before it is even light …
He looks darkly at his mother’s suggestion that we buy little cakes for the harvesters coffee break.
« Don’t even think about saying that it’s my birthday » he says.
The grapes are not a very nice birthday present either. Bunches come in holding only three or four grapes, with the remainder either killed by mildew or else destroyed by hail.
We’re on overdrive at the sorting table. It’s depressing, and it’s exhausting:
we have never seen the likes of this before.
But the good thing about the day is that it ends early, and we have a relaxed barbecue for Jan Ailbe’s birthday. And a glass of wine, to remind us that the justification of this labour is also the fruit of it.
Wednesday 12 September
Now we’re on our top Chardonnay field, Le Pech, the one that is the most responsible for Odyssée.
Again, another lovely dawn and another early start.
Amber, or rather Ambre as she is correctly called before being corrected by the spellcheck, is one of the contingent of hippies we have on board this year. She takes a Benson Break, and smuggles a cuddle with the Springer. Lola’s fierce-looking Alsatian, called Ghost for reasons better known to him, perhaps, than anyone else, prowls around powerfully and full of intent. Some other dogs seem to have surreptitiously joined the team as well, in fact, there’s quite a pack helping with the picking.
Martin Castellan, the quiet, diffident Englishman who has embarked on a career as a photographer and won the second prize in the Errazariz ‘Best Wine Photograph of the Year » last year, comes and joins us. We hope he’ll win first prize this year.
Martin snaps a shot of the group at lunchtime, here high on this high terrace of the Aude Valley.
Have to say, the atmosphere and the cooperation of these guys is absolutely great.
If they look like a bunch of happy harvesters, then that’s exactly what they are.
And we are happy too, because these grapes from Le Pech are really good. Odyssée looks promising at this point.
Thursday 13 September
Though we did have one minor kerfuffle. Christina, who is the Senior Lady of the harvesters, having done over a decade’s worth with us, stepped in volubly, either to fend for or to fight against her two sons, we are not too sure which. Another picker had accused them of slacking (and she was right), which caused this enormous uproar, manfully mediated by Xaxa and her husband Ian while the rest of us were quietly having a quick lunch down at the house.
Blissfully unaware, Jan returns to the scene and notices that the two slackers are way ahead of the rest. But by miles! So to be sure they haven’t left half the vines unpicked, he looks and finds not a single grape left hanging. How can this be?
« Well, boys! » he says jovially, « have you found the key to the turbo, or what? »
« It’s so unfair! » they splutter, « that bloody woman! (gesticulating at the nimble-fingered, hard-working picker with her head buried in the vines), that bloody woman said we were slacking! We’ll show them! We’ll show them we’re not slackers! »
And off they went, disappearing into the horizon and picking as if their lives depended on it, with a puff of dust rising behind them.
Jan pondered this novel form of incentivising staff for the rest of the day.
And now we are attacking the field called Vincent, which looks good. Thank goodness. And that then puts our Chardonnay in the bag.
And gives us a Friday night feeling though it is but Thursday.
Tuesday 18 September
A mixed bunch today, and we’re not talking grapes for once. There’s no harvest, so the Tuesday Talk, Tour & Tutored Tasting goes on as per normal. We have Swedes, Danes, Dutch, English and Irish on board, and a very jolly bunch it is too.
But all the excitement’s in the cellar, where the grape juice is turning into wine, on cue and without complication. It’s an oasis of calm in spite of such a monumental event.
We invite our outside consultant to come and taste the juice with us, so that together, and as objectively as possible, we can try to paint a picture of how this vintage looks.
And it looks pretty good! Small, but pretty full of potential, despite the imperfectly formed vintage
Although it’s still too early to tell. But it does lift our spirits.
Saturday 22 September
No, this is not what we feel like doing on free Saturday, but off we go to the Abbey Saint Hilaire, with our bottles, ice-buckets, glasses, flyers, posters and whatnot, where 16th century monks were the first in the world to discover how to make their wines fizz, in order to help our local tourist office put the spotlight on Limoux. They had invited a small group of journalists to visit the region, and have programmed a 45 minutes tour of the Abbey before a stop to taste some wines in its beautiful inner courtyard.
Although reluctant, we are on time, which is a good thing because they’ve done their tour in ten minutes flat. One declares himself to be English, working for the Guardian. « I love the Guardian! » I enthuse, as I do, having subscribed to its Weekly edition for over forty years. (When a newspaper has seen you through thick and thin on four continents of the world, and made sense of the coups d’états, presidential assassinations, and kidnappings that are happening in your own block , then of course you love it. In fact, you love it to bits. )
« Oh they all say that » he replies sourly, and retreats to a seat under one of the cool medieval stone arches. « It’s hot », he says, « and we’re tired. »
Normally I feel like hugging anyone from the Guardian. But this time I just smile back brightly. Oh poor you. We’re not tired at all. Oh no.
Monday 24 September
The weather is becoming what we wanted all along: bright, blue, sunny, crisp, clear, clean. It’s a bit late in the day for us, but it is beautiful none the less.
Wednesday 26 September
So this stop-start harvest starts again, way before dawn this morning. This is the last of the machine harvesting, for the chenin blanc we for the Pays d’Oc entry level wine. A coating of molten zinc lies over our sleeping landscape, as if someone has dusted silver halide crystals into the path of the full moon. A harvest moon. Surely a propitious moon?
As Apollinaire might have said (excepting that he didn’t) le ciel t’eblouit quand tu lèves ta tete …
But we don’t lift our heads. They are down over the sorting table, checking the grapes. We don’t see the amazing spectacle playing out in the sky overhead.
In the neon light of the ‘reception area’ as it is called, things look good. There are quite a few globe spiders, which is interesting: they live on little crickets, and we saw lots of them last time on the sorting table. All the diversity of our biology passes through our fingers.
Thursday 27 September
Today, for the first time, it feels like our harvests of yore. The weather is perfect, the view is amazing, the sky is thrilling and even the full moon won’t be put down (though it is the middle of the day). Everyone is in a terrific mood. Dany has brought us a most enormous leg of wild boar, which he shot at 200m.
« Oh, that’s close! » I say, thinking of the wild boar I met not long ago, about 200 m away.
« No, it’s not! » he replies crossly, ‘it’s very far. »
Dany is an ex-Legionnaire sharp-shooter.
Then he gets stung by a hornet, possibly two. In any event, he’s the second person to be stung by a hornet this year. Mental note to self: check up why? (Last year he was bitten by a snake. These things do not seem to bother him unduly.)
And then suddenly, after lunch it’s all over.
That’s harvest 2018 done and dusted. Never have we had such a short, sharp, and in many ways, unsatisfactory harvest. But the team came up trumps.
Saturday 29 September
On the menu: Salade de Gésiers, Pintade farci, fromage, dessert, and the wine we picked this time last year.
Next year we’ll have the fruit of this year’s labour on the table.
The talk is of tattoos. Lola has a lovely large butterfly on her thigh. I admire it, and she stretches her leg across Jan-Ailbe, sitting between us, to show me its many fine details. She is a tattoo designer, that’s her « truque » as she calls it. This intricate and very pretty butterfly, however, appears to have human skulls in its design, on closer inspection. What is the significance, I ask? « Something personal » she says, and we leave it at that.
There might be quite a lot to leave at that, with Lola. She lives in a van with her large German Shepherd, who weighs a mere 5 kg less than she does. Together they travel all over Europe, but she won’t go further because she can’t take Ghost with her. Before that, she lived wherever she could and mostly out of a rucksack. She’s attractive, diligent, hard working and by no means stupid. She wears her perpetual wide smile, and for the occasion, has put a red rose behind her ear.
Not to be outdone, Dany shows off one his many tattoos: an animal whose head is half boar, half dear.
Phuong-nhi, another most charming and good looking young woman, beautifully dressed, coiffed and manicured, admits to having a little tattoo on her back.
Florian has them all over his arms.
Many of these people are bi-lingual. The talk drifts to families escaping wars, escaping Franco, or just moving on to other parts. Dany gets bored – he probably reckons to have been everywhere, seen everything – and goes into the kitchen to lecture Jan-Ailbe about firearm safety.
And then Florian, Damien, and Jonathan slip out to their cars and come back with Spanish guitars. They play extremely well (click on the picture for proof).
Our harvesters are certainly a talented bunch. They’ve been great, possibly the most cooperative thing about Vintage 2018.
To be continued next month….