The year is nearly done – but 2013 is by no means in the bag. Or at least, not at Rives-Blanques, where a couple of recalcitrant barrels of wine from the 2013 vintage are still fermenting. Unheard of. But then, so much about this harvest was unheard of: privately, we call it the Year of […]
On y va? On n’y va pas. Pourquoi pas? Parce qu’on attend It seems appropriate to quote words written in French by an Irish playwright as we are setting the scene for our Harvest 2013. To answer the inevitable question: no, we have not started yet, and no we do not know when […]
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 […]