A curious kind of apathy seems to have settled on us as the lockdown days drift past, although it’s certainly busy enough in the vineyard. There’s more than enough to do, that’s not the problem. Even the world beyond seems to be shifting gear and driving into our in-box. And brimful it is, too, full to overflowing with helpful analyses on how the world will look AC (After Covid), and how to sell our wines on-line in that new digital reality. Against this backdrop, the rain falls, it dries, the sun comes out, it shines, the rain falls again … and the vines dance into the future without a care in the world. At the beginning of the month even the Mauzac was declaring itself in unmistakable embryonic bunches of tiny grapes, clinging for dear life to the old vines. They’ll be blossoming before we know it – even by the end of the month, I bet. Time just slips by, isolated or not, filled or not.
Wednesday May 6
It’s a small step for mankind, but a huge leap into the digital jungle for a small vineyard like ours to do a wine tasting by internet.
But we were in very good hands. Tamlyn Currin of the Team Jancis Robinson interviewed six producers who all belong to the Outsider group of winegrowers, about life in lockdown. And about our wines.
The final result is a case of 6 Outsider wines, sold at cellar door prices, which can be delivered just about all over Europe. Here’s the lowdown on that.
Well, that’s what the pundits told us to do, and it must be said, Xaxa did it very well.
Wednesday May 13
Really wish the rain would go into lockdown. It’s beginning to look like 2018 all over again, our nightmare year. Organic farmers are hostages to their inadequacy in the fight against mildew when you have these kind of conditions: constant, heavy rain coupled with humidity blowing in from the Mediterranean. All you can do is spray copper sulphate, and then spray some more. Not ideal under any circumstances, particularly since in these kinds of conditions, it’s not all that effective.
Not for the first time we hold the forbidden fruit of the soft chemicals used in Sustainable Viticulture, which are so much more effective against mildew, up to the light, look at the sparkling clarity from all sides, turn, twist, and consider the idea from all sides, consider dropping organic accreditation (again) so that we can intervene in a non-intrusive way if absolutely necessary and when it comes to saving the vineyard … and then sigh. And decide to continue on, in spite of all the obvious disadvantages. Which are many and manifest.
The Chamber of Agriculture sent out a panic-stricken email two days ago to all producers: beware! it shouted, huge amounts of rain are forecast. Get your spraying done immediately!
The Association of Independent Wine Growers went one step further in an email to its members: We are seeking permission to allow spraying from helicopters for our members.
Thierry spent an exhausting day – again – driving the tractor through muddy fields trying to spray the vines in time. And skidding, so that some wiring and poles supporting the vines were crashed in to and broken. As well as some vines themselves, most horribly crippled.
And then what happens?
It doesn’t rain.
Thursday May 14
But the situation remains critical. The ground is so muddy from all the rain we’ve had since the end of April, that many winegrowers can’t get their tractors into their vineyards. They either have to lug the anti-mildew product and its sprayer on their backs and walk the long, hard walk, or they jump on a quad – if they have one. But there’s nothing they can do about the wind, which whips away the product before it has fallen. Heads of all the major organisations related to wine growing are all saying the same thing: sauve qui peut. It looks like 2018.
Excepting in the Pyrenees Oriental, where it looks worse, according to their Chamber of Agriculture.
Hand-in-hand, there something else funny going on: some parts of Burgundy and Bordeaux are both reporting floraison, the flowering of the vines. In early May! This is unheard of. We nervously inspect our own.
No sign of floraison
No significant mildew.
No black rot.
Just the cuckoo singing his monotonous song, which falls incessantly over our heads, like the rain.
…./to be continued.