Hot in Bordeaux

I like this sign

Jack, one of our youngest Wine Advisors, here with the current team looking after their customers on the phone whilst at the same time doing a two week 'educational' in sunny Bordeaux met this Englishwoman with her little daughters queuing in the loo. Unisex, of course, at a 'Marché Nocturne' in Duras.

Sociable places, French loos. The lady asked Jack if he was on holiday.  No, he said, he was working for Laithwaite’s at Le Chai au Quai.  Oh how funny … she was a Laithwaites customer and very well looked after … by a chap called … Jack! We only have the one Jack.

That's the way it is with Laithwaites Personal Wine Advisors; they are so very personal! You might think you're out of range in the loo. But you're not!   

This is my 47th summer here in little old Sainte-Colombe, sweltering alongside my grapes. They turn black. I stay pink.

Actually I prefer indoors this year. After many years I have finally trained our guests to keep shut their doors and window-shutters.

Chez Jean-Marie. Fierce dogs!

The rain-sodden British get here, see sun and fling open every opening, thus heating up the house alarmingly. We don't have air conditioning here. It’s just not done. You don't need air conditioning. Just shut everywhere tight between breakfast and bedtime and you are fine. 

Agreed, it makes all French villages look abandoned, but it also makes sense.

We're now thinking this coming vintage might be quite good. As Bordeaux had a wet, cold early summer, similar to Britain's, things got behind and we were not that optimistic. But August so far has been a hot as I can remember. It won't be an early harvest. But could be good. Some way to go yet, though. Don't relax the vigilance.  And keep on with the worrying and moaning. That's important; we are farmers, after all! 

Good peach crop

But the last proper Bad Vintage I remember was 1967. Damp weather, then warm sun meant Black Rot decimated the crop. Bordeaux was blanketed for days in a fog of spores from the nasty fungus that ate out the grapes. We harvested empty grape skins. That's what you call a Bad Vintage.

We don't allow that to happen now.

Now, all recent vintages have been pretty good. Some just extra-good.

It seems that with our purchase of Château du Bois we have acquired the village pond!

Luckily, I find the pond is looked after, along with all the village's open spaces by our hyper-enrgetic neighbour Jean-Marie. This is the first time I've seen him sitting still. He's usually only happy if he's on a tractor trimming something into submission. Our village is very neat. 

Thing is, we know how to look after our vines now. Copper sulphate has been used since the Etruscans. But our new tractor-atomisers, online meteorological, fungal warnings and such have defeated black rot and changed the game. As long as you stay alert and move fast.

He gets a bite! Or whatever anglers say ...

It's Charlie the Black Carp. You'd think he'd learn about those hooks. He goes back in. Till next week ... 

The old chaps staggering up and down the rows as fast as they could with a backpack sprayer and firing voodoo rockets up into the clouds, had the odds against them. We are much luckier. Touch wood.