Alistair Moon's Letter from France- March 2000 |
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The last newsletter which you may or may not have received went out in December of last year. I tend to write them just before I go to visit my Mum who lives in Belfast and is now totally, but totally, deaf. She suffers from tunnel vision as well (don't we all but perhaps in a different way!) but she still has all her marbles, although she is now a good deal frailer than, say, 18 months ago. Still, not bad for 95. I'm due to go over and see her soon so I have to write to her before I go, so that she knows what is going on, without me having to write it down when I see her!
The Vineyard.
Things quietened down at the end of November as far as frenetic activity was concerned. I still had plenty to do in the winery - more later - but there was not a lot to do in the vines. A bit of tidying up and spraying of brambles to keep them in check and that was it - until the leaves started to drop from the vines when it was time to start pruning! I leave pruning to Patrick (my employee) and any seasonal labour that knows what to do. It can't be that difficult, and I guess I will get around to trying my hand at it sometime, but not just yet. The vines that are pruned like bushes are fairly simple and easy, but the vines that are trained on the wires are a good deal (physically) harder. Not only is there a certain amount of good judgement that has to be applied in selecting which of the shoots to leave for the following year, but to stop the plant getting longer and ever longer, there is usually a thick piece of wood, carrying several shoots, to cut as well as the thinner shoots themselves. Patrick has a vicious piece of kit - an electric secateurs - that will take your finger off as soon as look at you, which goes through thick and thin alike. In fact, at the factory that makes them, which is just up the road from us, they demonstrate its power by cutting through broom handles! As the electric secateurs cost about £700 we only have one set - and we had to replace that one this year as the battery quit one cold weekend. So seasonal labour and anybody else has to use handraulic secateurs for the smaller shoots and a set of branch loppers for the thicker bits. Much too complicated for me! I confine myself to tying the pruned shoot onto the wire support - which is where I came in a year ago.
The first bit Patrick pruned was a little less than ½ hectare (just over an acre) of Jurançon, which is a not very wonderful grape that has lots of juice and not too much flavour - we use it for rosé mostly. This was then all pulled out of the ground by a very large tractor with a very big gouge on the back of it, so that this year we can replant with nice AOC grapes like Merlot, as well as the local varieties of Duras and Braucol. I also applied last year for the right to plant some extra vines and just recently received authorisation to plant a bit less than an acre of Cabernet Sauvignon which we shall probably plant next year to come on stream in 2003 or 2004 and be ready to drink in 2005 or 2006. None of this vine stuff is quick!
The pruning has to be done for about the end of March/middle of April, and although this winter has been much better than last year - and thus the sap is starting to rise as I write - we should be able to get the job done before the buds begin to break. The Moroccan guy I had last year to help with the pruning - an excellent guy, very conscientious - unfortunately this year has got himself tied up with one of my neighbours, who started him off in December, and with whom he will stay until he is finished. He managed to find a friend of his to help me who worked for a month, and then found that, being a pensioner, his Social Security etc etc was stopped and he was worse off than when he started. So he stopped! So we are back to square one and, despite what I said above, I may yet be seen in the fields with a set of secateurs in my hot little hand!
The Winery
I knew it wasn't as simple as it seemed, but we seem to have come out of the
harvest fairly well. The important wine is all good - the Sauvignon Blanc, the
Merlot and the Syrah - and the less important is OK. And, yes, lessons have been
learnt! The first lesson, which I alluded to in my last newsletter, is the need
for a 3rd person in the winery during harvest time. So, if there is anyone
amongst the readership of this epistle who would, or knows anyone else who
would, like a working holiday for some or all of the period between the
beginning of September and the middle to end of October this year, PLEASE LET ME
KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! Journey to and from here, accommodation, food and a
little beer money provided. The accommodation should be, if not palatial, at
least baronial - but warmer!
The next lesson learnt was to gather in the major part of the white grapes a
good deal earlier. Obviously it is not a matter of date but rather of stage of
maturity. Last year I let them get too ripe, the alcohol level was too high and
they picked up a bit of grey rot - I am talking mainly about the Mauzac. The
first Mauzac we picked was OK and a small amount of that will go into the
bottled white wine, together with the Sauvignon Blanc which, though I say it
myself, is quite excellent. The rest is sold in bulk anyway, and a near
neighbour who bought a lot of my Sauvignon Blanc as grapes straight off the
vine, has agreed to take all the rest of the white, including some very late
picked Mauzac which I can only describe as "Rough". Still, as he says,
it is so full of alcohol that it can be blended with better tasting, but weaker
stuff, and make a tolerable wine at a reasonable price. Anyway he has agreed to
give me a good price for it, which is all that matters!
The red wine has been a lot less problematical, although it failed the test
for AOC first time around because it was a bit too alcoholic. A common problem
last year and one solved by a stroke of the pen with the appropriate
dispensation. I should have got it BEFORE we harvested, but they made allowances
for my inexperience and granted me one after the event. So that, too, is lined
up ready to be sold, apart from the relatively small amount I shall keep back to
go into bottles in about a year's time. We shall then have 3 sorts of red wine
available - a pure Merlot, a pure Syrah (or Shiraz as the New World calls it)
and a small amount of a genuine Gaillac traditional mix. Place your orders now! See
below for the contact details. Temporarily contact
jontywild@pirton.org.uk
Currently, at long, long last the red from 1998 is about to be bottled. It gets its final filtration next week and will be bottled - I hope - the week commencing 27th March. After the filtration I shall be hand-bottling a very small quantity for samples so that I can take some to N Ireland when I go to see my Mum. There is a shipper there who is interested in the smaller winemaker like me, so I shall try to get to see him when I am there.
The Chateau.
Well, what can I say. Brief periods of activity interspersed with periods of
not very much happening at all. At last the windows arrived - the stone
surrounds that is - and were fitted. We had a slight contre-temps one day, just
as I was about to give my spiel to a group of visiting walkers, when one of the
workmen fell off the scaffolding onto the ground. Very luckily, he was not badly
hurt, as he fell from about 18 feet up onto some sizeable chunks of stone that
were on the ground below. He sustained a broken arm and some bruises and there
was great excitement when all the emergency services turned out. The Sapeurs
Pompiers are the first port of call - they are effectively a fire and rescue
service, fully equipped with
ambulances and para-medics. My man Patrick is a volunteer Pompier and para-medic
so he was able to make sure the right things were done until the rest of the
team arrived. The team got the injured chap from the ground onto a stretcher and
thence into the ambulance where another team of emergency medics did the first
line of emergency treatment - inserting drips, cutting off clothing etc etc -
before taking him off to the emergency hospital in Albi. Then of course the
gendarmes came round, asked questions and took photographs, as a result of which
the injured man's boss was fined 25000 francs (£2500) for not having the
appropriate safety rails around the scaffolding. My nephew John Matthews, who is
an expert scaffolding constructor/supervisor would be horrified to see some of
the practices that good ole' country builders get up to. But I guess it's the
same the whole world over. I well remember seeing, in Singapore, a motor cycle
mechanic in a village tuning a motor cycle by putting the spark plug lead in his
mouth and kicking over the starter and adjusting the timing until he got the
biggest belt from the spark plug lead!! Effective, but not necessarily best
practice!
Anyway we have bought all the bathroom furniture and some has been delivered, ready for fitting. We have 5 loos in the place - a different one every day almost - but we managed to get all the suites for our own bathroom and the 2 guest bedrooms and the down stairs cloakroom and the loo for the punters in the tasting room, all within budget! Wonders will never cease. The kitchen is the place that is now taking a great deal of my attention, to try and get that within budget. As the nice lady in the factory outlet in Gaillac said, it is about 3 times the size of the average French kitchen, and consequently more expensive. However, by a judicious bit of juggling and some minor economies, I think we shall have a bigger version of our kitchen in Pirton, within budget. France is a strange place in many ways - to a foreigner, that is - and one of the strange things is the "Sales". These are strictly speaking for selling off the remainders and have a regulated start date and finish date. Being French, of course they have a way round the regulations - it's called a "Promotion" and does exactly the same thing as a Sale. Anyway, just before the end of the "Sales", we managed to find going cheap - or at least a good deal cheaper than the list price - a new, old-looking farmhouse table and two benches for either side, which will be our new kitchen dining table.
The finish date for the chateau has slipped until the end of April and will probably slip into May, the leadtime on the kitchen being the next cork in the plughole, however the crépiseurs have now finished putting crépi on the walls upstairs. Personally, I hate crepis, which is a cement-based substitute for plaster. It is rough to the touch, it is a pig to penetrate and anything that touches it (fingers, furniture etc) gets scraped to pieces. But it is what they do here and it looks good on old stone walls which are anything but flat, vertical, horizontal or straight! So crépi we have. The crépiseurs work outside when the weather is good and inside when it rains so we were delighted to get a spell of rainy weather. But it is all sunny now and crépiseurs have not been seen near the place since. The plumber is reputedly making an appearance soon - he was actually on-site measuring things the other day so we take that as a hopeful sign - and the windows (wooden) and doors are supposed to be arriving next week too. Don't know when the glass is scheduled mind you! However, the flat continues to be a cosy home in which we are existing very comfortably - the only hassle has been the dust from sandblasting the walls which not only flies everywhere, but also forms a layer around the buildings which gets trampled inside the house continuously. Even I am getting a little fed up with it!
One Year On!
Yes, it is just over a year now since we took the plunge, the novelty has worn off and the chateau STILL isn't ready!! The hard work starts now to bring the vineyard into breakeven status - by selling the bottled wine, and yes, thank you very much, many of you are already helping us to do just that. I had a heart to heart with my accountant the other day where, amongst other things, we discussed the likely position at the end of this year's trading. I won't tell you the total sales figure I have to reach, but it is somewhat daunting, although not totally inaccessible! Suffice it to say that the next 2 or 3 years will be fairly tough. Ah!, well, if you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined.
I said the novelty has worn off, and that is quite true, but, as Lizzie and I were saying to each other (she was back home for a whole ten days!) as we drove down off the high ground where we live down into the Tarn valley, on a lovely sunny day where the temperature was climbing above 16°C, this really is a lovely part of the world. We have had quite a few really clear mornings of late and we have been able to see the 90 odd miles to the Pyrenees and see the rosy rays of the rising sun shining on the snow-covered slopes. We thoroughly enjoy the relaxed atmosphere here. This is a country part of France, and I'm sure the urban and suburban centres of France are just as hectic as in UK, but here it is peaceful and agricultural. I have often likened this part of France to Scotland - it is a long way from the capital, they speak with a funny accent, Toulouse is a centre of culture like Edinburgh and like Edinburgh, the inhabitants reckon it is the best city to live in in France. The big difference is that the weather here is better than UK and a WHOLE lot better than Scotland. And yes, for those that like it, skiing is only a couple of hours away. The French schools are very civilised in that they have a two week break in February so that the kids - and their Mums and Dads - can go skiing. And the schools are divided into 3 groups and the holidays are staggered so that there are never more than 2 groups on the slopes at any one time - except at changeover times when the chaos and traffic has to be seen to be believed. Around the Alps, and to a lesser extent, the Pyrenees it is like the coast is in the summer - chock full! However it doesn't affect us and even in the height of summer we have never had trouble getting to Toulouse airport - I think one day I got held up for 5 minutes, but that was all really.
Christmas/New Year/Millennium etc
We spent Christmas here on our own and celebrated with a fine chunk of roast beef, the like of which I have not eaten for many a long year. It made a great change from turkey and we drooled over it for several days until it was time to set off for Spain, where we were scheduled to stay with our friends from Brussels for New Year. We took it in easy stages, in fact so easy that the first one was still in France with friends in Le Boulou, near the Spanish border, where Nick and Daphne entertained us in royal fashion - thank you again, both, it was great to see you again. Next day we stopped just outside Valencia and the following day arrived in good order at El Pareiso, between Estepona and Marbella. It always amazes me that the place exists at all - it is just like the Emperor's new clothes story: if everybody stopped believing it would all collapse. However we had a lovely time, eating and drinking and putting on weight for 10 days. We also visited the Alhambra palace/fortress in Granada. It was a beautiful day and the place is quite spectacular - well worth the journey. On the way back we went up the middle of Spain and stayed the night at Toledo, in a little hotel right in the middle of the old town. We were able to walk round and see the sights and eat in the local "typically Spanish" restaurant. Next day a longish drive back home round Madrid, San Sebastian and Biarritz. Luckily the weather was good the whole time, and in fact, after the storms around Christmastime, which luckily did not affect us at all - broke a couple of rotten branches off our trees, that's all - we had good weather the whole of the time we were away.
The winter here has been much more pleasant - so far - than last year. There has been far less rain than last year, so the mud has not been such a feature in our lives. The muck from the building site more than makes up for it however! Lizzie had a slowish start to her year so she was here with me for a fair amount of January and February. She volunteered to help me with the attaching of the vines to the wires so we were able to get well ahead of the game compared to last year. We managed to take a day off to do a bit of a tour around to see the woods and valleys that lie to the north of us and have a lunch out.
Lunchtime is the big French meal. There are lots of little restaurants which are open at midday and not in the evening, and here you do have to get in on time - "En France, on mange à midi": one eats at midday, 12 o'clock, on the dot. Leave it an hour and you can have great difficulty getting in, principally because the menu most often chosen will be the menu of the day, and the chef will do all the starters and then all the main courses and so on, so that latecomers interrupt the flow and are not welcomed! We have had some super meals for very little money. 60 francs (£6) at a local village gets you soup, starter, main course, cheese, desert and coffee, and as much wine and bread as you care to consume! The value for money is amazing.
We find that for most things it is cheaper here than in England, and quite a bit more so now that the Pound has risen against the Euro - or vice versa! This makes holidaying in France at 10.5 francs to the £1 a much better bet than 8 or 9 years ago when it was 7.5 francs to the £1! Mind you, being in a relatively out of the way country area, the choice of goodies in the supermarket is not quite like Sainsbury's in Stevenage or Belfast, at least not in our 2 local ones. Having said that, if we cared to go 15 minutes up the road to Albi there are at least 2 huge supermarkets that have a much better range. And of course there is also Marks and Sparks in Toulouse. IBM gives me a couple of M&S vouchers every Xmas and the shop in Toulouse was quite happy to accept them!
I managed to do a bit of flying recently - I needed a few hours to keep my licence valid and it seemed a pity to give it all up. So with an old acquaintance from Navy days who lives locally I did a session of circuits at Gaillac and then we set off to go to Biarritz, in the bottom lefthand corner of France. An hour and a half there and the same back - compared to 3½ each way by car - and a nice lunch just outside the airport and a very nice way to spend a day. I had to fly - to get the hours - so my friend had great fun playing with my GPS, which made it very easy to navigate over the relatively featureless countryside in that part of France. It was quite a hazy day, otherwise the views of the Pyrenees would have been spectacular as we flew along them.
Thanks to all of you who drop us emails/PCs etc and keep us in touch with what is going on in our old haunts. We appreciate the contact very much.
COMMERCIAL BREAK. The wine is available in UK from Domaine de Mohune UK,
otherwise known as Fiona Moon, who can be reached at temporarily contact
jontywild@pirton.org.uk.
She will do you a wonderful deal and MAY even deliver the wine personally,
depending on where you live! The first shipment of white went over a few weeks
ago and the first of red should follow very soon. If you would like to order
some for this shipment give her a ring or drop her an e-mail. End of commercial.
That's all for now folks, thank you for your patience if you have managed to get this far without falling asleep. Don't forget, if you would rather not have your in-box filled up with my drivellings, just drop me an email and I'll take you off the list.
All the best from Gaillac,
Alistair
PS. Where we live currently will be available as a gite in the summer. Ridiculously cheap, sleeps two, three at a pinch, and you will probably get roped in to help in the vines (but only if you want to) and not really suitable for kids (too much machinery etc). Temporarily contact via jontywild@pirton.org.uk bookings.
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