The vines continue to race away and are 10 to 14 days ahead of last year. Nevertheless we managed to get a day away on Sunday and headed to the spectacular Col du Rousset. The Col marks the southern entrance onto the Vercors plateau and the road which tumbles down from it to the Drôme valley is beautiful. If you are staying here on the Domaine a drive to the Col with a leisurely lunch is a super little day trip. … [Read more...]
Bud burst!
And here we go! Bud burst is usually in early April, but here we are a couple of weeks earlier than last year. Although we got some good cold weather in January, the weather in February and March (particularly the last couple of weeks) has been very mild. The weather outlook is pretty good too - let's hope there are no late frosts! … [Read more...]
We’re getting there!
Still a bit of work to do, but we are getting there with our preparations for the new growing season. The weather has been generally kind which has allowed us to get on with the work. The pruning is finished and since the picture above was taken we have been through with the machine that chops up all the prunings that you can see in the grassed rows. It is looking like bud burst is going to be early this year (more news soon) so no time to waste! … [Read more...]
Fit to burst
Spring is sprung! We have had some lovely sunny days this week with the temperatures up in the low 20s. Signs of Spring are all around - above is the cherry blossom just about to burst open. A couple of other shots below show the sweet almond trees in full bloom with their carpet of wild orchids below and the hedge around our gite in full bloom. Bud burst on the vines is still three or four weeks away, but they are already starting to "weep" - with sap rising out of the pruned stems. An … [Read more...]
Strange purple things at the bottom of the tank!
I wanted to show you this picture that we took whilst getting ready for our recent bottling. We have had a couple of good cold spells this winter which has let the winery and the wines get nice and cold. This helps the tartrates to precipitate out of the wine and in this case they have formed this amazing undulating crust over the bottom of the tank. If anyone knows why it does this rather than just being a flat layer on the bottom - please let me know! Meanwhile in the vines signs of … [Read more...]
All bottled up
One of the things we are passionate about is that wines should have a sense of place, but what does that mean? For us it means that the wines are of and reflect this beautiful corner of the World. The rains fall gently (actually often not so gently) on our soils from where they are sucked up into the vine and with a little help from the sun become grape juice. Come the autumn those grapes are harvested and carried no more than a few hundred meters to the winery where with the help of … [Read more...]
We’re on a roll!
A busy day last week with our barrels. The wines for our La Dame Anglaise 2015 had been in the barrels for exactly 300 days and we decided that the time was right to get them out and (after a good clean) get our Vinsobres 2016 wines in. Unfortunately our pump doesn't have an auto cut-off like a petrol pump so re-filling the barrels is a delicate process. It's best to stop well short of the top and top-up by hand! After a good days work the 2015 La Dame Anglaise is safely tucked up in a tank … [Read more...]
Le Mont Ventoux
Our new gite, Le Mont Ventoux is now up and running. The gite is perfect for a family. It is located at the southern end of the main house. An outdoor terrace opposite the pool gives views of the Mont Ventoux and leads into a large sitting area with comfortable leather sofa, armchair and a TV. This room is open plan with a spacious dining area and well equipped kitchen. There is also a downstairs toilet. Upstairs is a bathroom with bath, separate shower, toilet and also a washing machine. … [Read more...]
Thank you!
We are really pleased to have received a Booking.com award for our gites for the second year running. So many thanks to all of our guests in 2016 and we look forward to seeing more of you in 2017. We will soon be posting pictures of our new gite for this year - Le Mont Ventoux - which I have just finished painting, so keep an eye out for those. … [Read more...]
Winter
A wintry scene this morning with the sun struggling to break through above the snow dusted landscape. To our son's great disgust there is no more snow in the forecast, but we are apparently in for a really big chill next week, with temperatures down to -8° at night and struggling to get into positive figures in the day. This will be the coldest "episode hivernale" since February 2012, but is very welcome in controlling the pests and diseases and also allowing the vines a proper period of … [Read more...]
Organic wine tastes better – who’d have thought it!
A study from UCLA has concluded that organic wine tastes better. In a 74,000 bottle study the researchers concluded that organic wines got consistently higher ratings from Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate etc. It is interesting to note that for red wines the difference between conventional and organic wines was even greater. Let's raise a glass to that. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/do-eco-friendly-wines-taste-better … [Read more...]
Assemblage
A big day in our annual wine calendar yesterday, we spent the afternoon with our oenologist tasting all of our tanks of 2016 to decide the blends for our 2016 wines. This is great fun and also fascinating. It's amazing how adding even 10% of a different wine to a blend can make a marked difference. As well as tasting the 2016s we also tasted all of the barrel aged 2015 Vinsobres, which have now been in barrel for nearly 9 months, to decide what barrels will make up our 2015 La Dame Anglaise. … [Read more...]