The forested north and east perimeters of the vineyard have always been something of a no mans’ land. Long ago a mass of thorny briars took root below the cliff and created a minefield of rusty barbed wire tangled up in the dumping ground of previous residents. It would take years to clear out the broken glass, tin cans, tires and tossed-out tools by dragging the detritus up the stone ridge, one bucket at a time. Everyone knows that the inaccessible woods rising near the briars are a haven for owls, hawks, deer… But recently, someone began to suspect that […]
“Grapes and Old Stones”
139 posts
Halloween and Pressing Day: costumes, pitchforks, bloody red stains, spooky stories. It’s not my favorite wine making activity. People are always reminding you of someone they knew who died from asphyxiation clearing out a vat. Plus the person who tried to rescue them. And it’s always something extra horrible like a father and his devoted son. The first part, raking mounds of grape skins out of the vat – is just hard work. But it always catches me in the solar plexus when John folds himself like a circus contortionist to crawl through the tiny tank door. Then the drama […]
Many years ago a family employee set out to defend the vegetable garden. He was a handy man philosopher who engaged in occasional ponderings about ends justifying means. But he was also a self-avowed Anarchist who spent a lot of time in the Foreign Legion, so I can’t pretend to understand much about his solipsistic ruminations. Certainly it was tiresome to find that the rabbits had gotten into the carrots again. How he came to the decision to install an electric fence is a bit of a mystery; sadly I was not around at the time. Perhaps it was kin […]
Day and night for the past week, the harvesters have resounded through the valley; the entire region mobilized to vendange before another rain. No time for a second cup of coffee, our harvester started before dawn. A day of sunshine. Good cheer. Beautiful, juicy grapes. Improvisation and perpetual motion at the chai. And when we say “artisanal” sometimes it means running into the field and finding an old post and some rope to hold the whole thing together. All in, we close up the brimming tank and get to work. Post script: Et voila, the valiant Cabs just “before.’ And […]
The whole village didn’t show up, it just seemed that way. In the middle of a season that local newspapers are pronouncing catastrophique, neighbors dropped by to check in, swap stories, lend a hand. Wilfrid from Carbonneau loaned us his pompe à marc and his characteristic serenity. Alfred from Roberterie offered philosophy and the wisdom of choosing a benevolent insurance agent. Laurent from Haut Redon came with the latest in machinery. When the tractor and wagon pulled up, out popped the village Mayor, his father and our driver of grapes. 8 tons of Merlot. With the grapes safely inside the […]
After a sunny week the balance tipped. Labour starts tomorrow at dawn. You can hear the tremor in some neighbor’s voices; worry about the weather, scare stories. A scramble to get the Merlots in as fast as possible. We spend this weekend quietly preparing the winery, controlling what we can. Not a tube or tank is left un-scoured. Suddenly, a black cloud passes overhead. We put down our brushes to watch it move on, thinking we’ve been spared. But then rain and hail fall from a sky bright with sunlight just a kilometer to the west. Holding our breath we […]
In a good year it’s easy to talk about terroir as a place where Nature and Human work together and bring forth a measure of bounty. What to say in a difficult year? It was the coldest, wettest spring in decades. We lost about 30% of the Merlots. The survivors suffer from uneven grape maturity. But we escaped the devastation of the July hailstorms. The late blooming Cabernets are doing fine. After many decent years, the local collective mind now gingerly recalls the catastrophic ones. The winter of ’59 when the long freeze destroyed harvests for two successive vintages. The […]
When I told my farm-raised aunt I’d been canning summer vegetables she exclaimed, “I thought putting up the beans had gone the way of party-line telephones! A shame she wasn’t on hand when I was facing a bumper crop a few years ago. Her house maker’s DNA registered everything a country survivor needed, including pie crust recipes that still used solid Crisco. Alone amidst the plenty, there was no option but to teach myself how to can. I found it scary (kill the family if you don’t sterilize properly) painful (forging through scalding water to that last jar at the […]
There’s something satisfying about putting up 18,577 bottles of freshly corked wine in your garage. Bottling Day, Vintage 2012. Small scale but super organized. Team in place to man the line. The joy of friends come to help. Christian and Sonia, partners in a small bottling and labeling business, bring machinery and muscle. We always thought that strong and competent Sonia looked young for her age. Found out yesterday was her birthday – no wonder she looks young, she just turned 23! Henri is in all places at once, from front loading to pallet-cages to the pump in the winery. […]
When I first came to France as a new bride, I overheard snatches of Friday night conversation – “… early rising tomorrow… seeing the Duchess…” The next morning the old bell in the courtyard (used in emergencies such as a suspected drowning or for urgent rallying causes, like dinner) sent wake-up shards through the entire house. No pity for latecomers, they were left mercilessly behind to fight over a few stale croissants in an empty larder. In a packed car, lurching along the sinuous road that borders the Dordogne, we were the fidele en route to the holy land – the […]
Honey Bees in the Attic Photos by Michele Marechal In the days when the children were children it was the perfect secret hideout. Secluded, silent, untrammeled. A place for scary stories and hatching plots among menacing gargoyles and doors nailed shut for decades. But no one goes up into the tower much anymore. Perhaps that’s why the honey bees took over. The colony had multiplied quickly by the time the beekeeper arrived. We were expecting armored suits and masks from ghostbusters, but were greeted instead by the gentle and wiry Monsieur Labaye (yes, pronounced just like “abeille” – honey bee) […]
It carried me back to childhood days at my grandparent’s farming town in Michigan. Local farmers purveying their wares, in this case vignerons showing off their wines, and the villagers grazing from stand to stand, comparing, (secretly of course) greeting neighbors, exchanging news. On the square in front of the Mairie (Town Hall) tables heaved under sausages, frites and brochettes of grilled duck. Children tilted somersaults on the lawn and a 10 piece blues band wailed American oldies – imagine “Mustang Sally” and “When a Man Loves a Woman” with saxophone sexiness and an endearing French accent. We leapt to […]
Every June we’re brought to our senses by the ubiquitous perfume of the Linden Trees. A hot Sunday afternoon, time out from chores, we sit under their massive boughs and synch into the hum of hundreds of bees. Someone is dozing in the hammock there, dreaming of Linden Flower honey. Under the soporific spell Henri toys with a flower and asks his Tata Claire if she knows how to make Linden Tea. Nap time ends abruptly. First, John saws off several low branches that beg for pruning. We perch inside a fragrant heap of leaves and flowers teeming with insects […]
An unseasonably cold month of May indeed, but the vineyard gets another notch on the epaulette for steadfastness. No hail, no frost. Sunshine after each shower, cool winds to dry things up. (A pound of salt going over my left shoulder as I write.) This is our lucky micro-climate. The vines are shooting up fast and bunches of would-be grapes have formed. Signs of potential over-abundance, so now we walk the parcels for spring pruning. Most of the work is manual and slow. Our goal is to remove anything that distracts the plant from correctly nourishing the grapes we intend […]
The oldsters still check the almanac and wag a finger – “don’t plant your tomatoes until after the “saints de glace” – these 3 days in mid May when the last fear of crop-killing frost is over. This period also coincides with Mother’s Day and John’s birthday. Since he’s become such a mere poule over the years I like how it all comes together symmetrically on my calendar. Perhaps foolishly, but in tune with his cell deep “life is short” hard-wiring, we jumped the gun and planted a new vegetable garden this week on the hilltop near the vineyard. Rhubarb, cucumber, […]
Stone huts, stables, barns, pig sties…. The oldest out-buildings of the vineyard weep for renovation. Fortunately, I was reassured this morning that there is an upside to not having the time or means to make everything “nice.” One reward for living in semi disarray – the joy of sighting two “Huppes fasciées,” (Hoopoe in English) a protected species in Europe. Their numbers have fallen as pesticide use has grown and killed off their meal plan, mostly big insects like slugs, beetles, snails, etc. They nest in old abandoned buildings, piles of rocks, fallen trees. There has been a family here […]
This week the vineyard abruptly woke up. Baby vine buds everywhere. Heart breakingly beautiful. And so fragile. The farmers don’t smile at the beauty. They fret about a sudden freeze. Survival at -2 degrees. -3, no. I can’t think about that this morning. Too full of hope.
All the great mystical traditions speak of the peculiar qualities of grace. You can’t make demands. It has a life of its own and tends to show up when least expected. So perhaps it was fortuitous that I had no expectations when I went to the States this month to present the wine in my old hometowns – New York, Washington DC and Maryland. “Going home” turned out to be charged with more resonance than I could possibly have conjured up under my own steam. First stop, Washington Heights in northern Manhattan. I hopped off the “A” train at 181st […]
One day after a harvest, they laid down their tools and never returned. Entering the old winery always makes me think of stepping into the home of an aged and accomplished man, the last of his line, who has had a heart attack in the middle of a solitary dinner. A neighbor locks up the house, leaving everything as it was: clothes hanging on hooks, shoes by the bed, wine glass and bottle on the table. Closed up in the dark, preserved in dust. The old winery had become a sort of no man’s land, more like a haunted house […]
Many years ago we thought a diagnostic of the house stones would be wise. Did that crack in the façade presage a catastrophe? Or normal settling after a few centuries? Acknowledging that reading stones was like reading runes – interpreter required – we looked up the most reputable stonemason in our region. I was expecting an iron booted, massive sumo type covered in rock dust, but it was a smallish fellow in canvas sneakers, hopping out of a truck nimble as a goat who extended his hand. His eyes burned a bleached out blue against the worker’s tan, framed by […]
“Go east at the top of the second hill and meet me at the Roman Road.” All these years and I didn’t know a Roman Road runs from the Romanesque church of the Blessed Mother through the hilltop vineyards and on down to the river. But I discovered it by hunting for M in one of her far off parcels, yodeling for some sign of life on a silent, freezing afternoon. M and her husband are the 3rd generation owners of an old Juillac vineyard. They are local pioneers of organic viticulture and their success has been hard won by self […]
Ever since the time I caught head lice when the kids were little, I’ve been slightly insane about parasites. Hospitality is a delicate custom and in my ideal universe, giver and receiver should get a fair shake. So when the vegetation is laid bare in winter and I spy prettiness that isn’t what it seems to be, I get a little crazy. Take ivy. Okay, I admit I’m biased and I know ivy is not a perfect example, but since I’m on a rampage, I’ll begin here. This centuries’ old acacia boule has been the setting for an ongoing battle for […]
The vines look a bit of a mess after the taille. The pruners cut and move on down the row, leaving the sarments (vine shoots) tangled helter skelter in their web. Danté and I woke this morning to a scattering of snow and found that an elf had come through and tidied it all up. The vignerons call this tirer les bois -“pulling the wood.” (And they move cautiously since it’s easy to poke your own eyes out.) The job is to untangle the sarments from the frame-wires that the tendrils curled themselves around in the spring. They are then laid out […]
We found their guilty hoof prints where they were digging in the vineyard during the night. Denis saw a culprit in September, lollygagging on a compost pile in the middle of the day. Last summer we came upon one in siesta, splayed out on a cool pile of mud in the woods. Normally the wild boar only venture out in the dark. But as they grow numerous they get comfy, and when they travel in packs the havoc they wreak is considerable – to young trees and especially to young vines. Almost makes you long for the days of the […]
Such stillness, you can almost feel the vines sleeping. It’s the time of the “taille.” This photo of a parcel of Cabernet Sauvignon was taken in December, before pruning. Pruning marks both the end of the year and the beginning of a new one. While the vegetation is dormant, it’s time to cut away what is not useful from last year and establish the possibilities for this year. Far from a metaphor, it’s a task of precise hand labor, and it’s all about making choices. Not so easy. Here’s an example – you can see the principal branch arching from […]