A relaxed lunch in the shady courtyard today with our friends Henk and Indra.  Henk is a a web-designer and designed this site. Indra is a photographer and if you like Provence take a look at her blog www.indraprovence.com which has some lovely stories and beautiful pictures. … [Read more...]

It's the longest day today and as you can see the Lavender is now magnificently in full bloom.  In the vineyard the vines have had their trim and are looking very neat. As with many things in life, trimming the vines is a delicate balance.  Left to their own devices the shoots keep growing and then droop down shading the developing grapes - not good!  On the other hand if you trim too much you rob the vines of the leaves it needs to photosynthesise and produce the sugars for the grapes - also … [Read more...]

We have had a very stormy weekend.  Some, like this one, slide right by leaving us bathed in sunshine, other times you get a direct hit!  Mercifully we have not had any hail as it's the hail which we really fear at this (or indeed) any time of year. We had about 50mm of rain over the weekend which has been very welcome, cooling things down nicely after a couple of really hot weeks.  The vines were also very grateful to get a drink as we had gone six weeks without any material rain.  The downside … [Read more...]

One of the things which makes this area so beautiful is the variety in the landscape.  The vines share the hillsides with oak and mediterranean pines, there are fields of wheat, sunflowers and of course lavender.  The lavender is starting to flower now and, as you can see from the picture, has just started to take on a blue tinge.  Once it's in full flower the whole field will be a beautiful lavender blue and when the hot sun hits it and the breeze blows the air is scented with lavender.  You … [Read more...]

Six days after they started flowering the bunches of tiny flowers have turned into bunches of tiny green grapes.  This is a photo of Grenache grapes in one of our Côtes du Rhône vineyards this morning.  The weather has been hot the last ten days, but yesterday afternoon and evening was very stormy with thunder and lightning all around, though we didn't get any rain.  Hopefully the storms will hold off just a few more days yet so that all the vines can finish flowering in good weather.  Then the … [Read more...]

They are not much to look at, but this is a vine flower. The bunch of tiny vine flowers turns into a bunch of delicious grapes. The weather in May was very dry (we only had 13mm of rain, 7mm of which was on 1 May) and warm. The last few days have been hot and this led to flowering starting on 1 June, a few days earlier than last year. There is a rule of thumb that harvest is 100 days after flowering, so we could be looking at harvest in the second week of September (last year we did not start … [Read more...]

The weather is great and we are looking forward to seeing lots of you over the next two days. Don't forget your picnic! We are open today and tomorrow from 11am to 7pm. … [Read more...]

The weekend of 23/24/25 May we are participating in Pique-Nique chez Le Vigneron, organised by the Vignerons Independent.  The Rosé will be chilled and you will be able to taste and buy all of our wines and visit the vineyard and winery.  Also, if the weather is kind we will fire up the wood fired oven for pizzas au feu du bois.  If you are interested in pizzas, please give us a call to reserve 48hrs in advance.  We will be open all weekend  and we look forward to seeing you!  Click on the link … [Read more...]

Just over a month since bud burst (see post of 14 April) and thanks to the fine warm weather the vines are growing strongly.  We are busy in the vineyard trying to keep up with them!  All being well the vines will flower in about three weeks time (early/mid June) and at that point the tiny grapes will form.  The picture shows one of our Grenache Côtes du Rhône vineyards looking East towards the Pré-Alpes, you can just see some clouds bubbling up over the mountains. … [Read more...]

Spring has given way to summer over the last few days with the temperatures nudging 30° - perfect weather for a glass of Domaine L'Ancienne École rosé!  Our rosé is called Carpe Diem, because when the weather gets warm we just have to pull the cork, you should feel free to do so too! … [Read more...]

It may be a bank holiday, but we are open for wine tasting and sales on Thursday 14 May, from 3pm to 7pm. And as it's a long week-end, we'll be open this Friday, Saturday and Sunday too at the same hours. If you need directions, just go to our contacts page: Domaine l'Ancienne École directions … [Read more...]