This is in our Grenache plot just beside the winery and as you can see we have bud burst! After a wet cool few days last week the warmer weather since the weekend has brought everything on quickly. It looks like the weather is set fair for the next week or so which will give the vines a good opportunity to grow away strongly. … [Read more...]
Bottling news
We have just bottled the 2017 Carpe Diem Rosé, the 2016 Terra Firma and 2016 Esprit du Nord. Usually when we bottle it is freezing cold or roasting hot, but last Friday, as you can see, we had a beautiful day.Meanwhile in the vineyard we are almost at bud burst. More on that soon...... … [Read more...]
Spring time
As the days lengthen towards the equinox next week the rhythms of Spring are well underway. In the courtyard the daffodils resolutely shrug off the cold, the hail and the wind and the rosemary is in flower and alive with the hum of bees. The almonds are always the first trees to emerge from their winter hibernation and the warm weather earlier this week has coaxed them into flower too.Fortunately we have had a reasonably wet winter and early Spring to make up for the exceptionally dry Autumn … [Read more...]
Happy New Year
As the sun rises over a snowy Mont Ventoux to welcome in 2018 we would like to wish everyone the very best for 2018. … [Read more...]
Sécheresse
Sécheresse is the French for drought and we are getting to know lots about it! Some welcome rain at the weekend has left the foothills of the Alps snow-capped, but with only two or three weeks to go this year we are well short of normal rainfall totals. On average here we expect about 750-800mm a year. 2014 was very wet with 1082 mm, well over a metre! 2015 was a little on the wet side of normal with 827mm and 2016 a little on the dry side with 736mm. This year however we are only at 455mm. … [Read more...]
It’s all in the mix
Blending day is always great fun. An afternoon at the lab with our oenologist and a sample bottle of everything in the winery. After several hours trying this and that and a bit of this or perhaps a bit of that we have agreed on the blends for the La Dame Anglaise, L'Essentiel and Esprit du Nord 2016 and also for the Terra Firma 2017. As you can see it's tough work, but someone has to do it. … [Read more...]
Murmuration
Each Autumn the starlings gather and provide us with a great show. … [Read more...]
Winter is coming
As we look across the vines towards the foothills of the Alps we can see the fist snow of the season here. The last couple of weeks the weather has turned colder, the heating is on and we have even had a little rain, although not nearly enough to alleviate the drought. At the moment with only about seven weeks to go we are at half the normal annual rainfall so we are keeping our fingers crossed for a wet winter. … [Read more...]
Press for Wine
The fermentations of the reds have all been finished since the start of October. We then leave the wine in the tank with the skins to extract colour and flavour. Once they have sufficiently extracted, we need to press the grapes and skins to extract the wine. We did our first pressing last week and pressed again last Sunday. We'll finish up by pressing the Cru Vinsobres Grenache at the beginning of next week. Here's a photo of the press in action. The grapes are pumped into the perforated … [Read more...]
Winery update
All is going well in the winery. About half of the tanks have now finished fermenting and the others will finish in the next few days.The exception is the rosé Carpe Diem which we keep chilled and therefore it ferments much more slowly; it's only about half done. For the reds, even once they have finished fermenting we keep pumping them over twice a day to extract the colour and flavour from the skins which are now floating on top of the wine (as you can see from the picture below). Then once … [Read more...]
All done
It was a beautiful hot autumn day yesterday and we brought in our last plot, the Grenache in Cru Vinsobres. Focus now turns to the winery where everything is fermenting fast and there's lots of work to do! … [Read more...]
Fermenting strongly…
Here is the Cru Vinsobres Syrah I referred to yesterday. This shot of the foaming wine is taken whilst pumping over. It's important whilst the wine is fermenting to "pump it over" regularly to keep it well mixed and extract the maximum flavour from the grapes. It also looks great and smells delicious! … [Read more...]