Barbara and I have been here in Bordeaux where the weather, since we arrived, has been kind to us and our rather battered Bordeaux vines. They've had a wild ride here. Rain-sun-rain-sun. Poor things are confused. We've been getting up early to 'green-harvest'. (Cutting surplus grapes off the vine so as to help the remainder ripen better). You need to do this work before the day gets too hot.
It still does your back in, but there is something very special about being up in the vineyard on top of the hill in the clear morning air. Mostly you're head down addressing the particular need of each vine. They are all so different this year. Some are black and ripe already. But many are still small, hard and green. This is going to be a 'challenging' year. But, starting now; green-harvesting, we can work wonders.
You have to think hard and really use your eyes in the tangles of grapes, stalks and leaves or you end up dropping the good bunches and leaving those which will never ripen. You have to understand how vines work, how the sap runs and what keeps things healthy. It’s slow work. But if we do it well we will create the ripeness levels of a very sunny year.
Of course any day now you'll see some kid-journalist who never touched a vine in his life announcing that 2007 is a bad year, a year to avoid. Ignore this. No year needs to be avoided if a) you avoid paying silly prices for famous names and b) if you know who the good winemakers are. They are the one's who work hardest.
Nominally we are on holiday here. But how can you not help out your vines when you are sitting in the middle of them? So most mornings we
go out with the secateurs. Our friends, staying with us, are resigned to it and turn out too. (Except those who come up with excuses like 'dodgy mussel last night!') Its a slog but every now and then you can look up, listen to the birdsong, and admire the rolling expanse of immaculate vineyards stretching along the ridge to the far outline of the great water tower of Saint-Emilion and then right across the valley to the Entre-Deux-Mers.
Dotted about, the little honey stone houses and the sturdy church towers, bells clearly marking the hour - all at different times. The other sound is the unmistakeable rattle of the old 'Micheline' Dordogne valley railway. On time.
Forty-Two years now, I have been coming to this village. Then there were two cars and one tractor. Everyone wore clogs, 'blue de travail', floral housecoats or widow's black. I remember standing in this very vineyard in my first year because it gave the best view of the towering thunderclouds heading up the valley from the coast towards us -like huge sailing ships - bearing hailstones that could strip a vineyard back to bare wood in seconds.
And as they went I could see the smoke trails of the rockets that every grower would fire into them to disrupt the ice-making updrafts for long enough for the hail not to fall until a minute or two later - on the neighbour's vineyard! Science or superstition? Or puny, helpless man venting his anger at forces incomprehensibly greater than he? Don't know. But some still have their rockets.
I love it here in 'my' Sainte Colombe with a passion. I love my vines. But Ouch! my poor old back.
We have, after seven years thinking about it, now increased the vineyard area of our precious Chateau La Clariere Laithwaite by adding to it the vineyards around our house at Le Bourg, the fruit of which we previously kept separate. The first vintage of this marriage is 2005. This is therefore the first vintage which will make an appearance in our price-list (November list). It never appeared on the List previously because the entire harvest was always reserved in advance for Les Confreres; those devoted supporters of the estate who signed up, long ago for a case every year. They will still get their cases. But it will also be nice, at last to see my wine on our List. Do watch out for it.
Just about everyone here is on holidays until next week. Then they'll all return and there will be a screaming mad rush preparing for the first grapes (the white wine grapes) which are already almost ripe.
Yes, the Wine Year is about to begin again. My 43rd. And as every year, a whole new, fresh chapter will open. It keeps you young.
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