Earth’s increase, foison plenty, Barns and garners never empty, Vines and clustering bunches growing, Plants with goodly burden bowing— Spring come to you at the farthest/ In the very end of harvest. Scarcity and want shall shun you. Ceres’ blessing so is on you. (From Shakespeare’s The Tempest) We could do with some blessings from […]
The best of times, the worst of times – and the fastest-paced time of all times … with no time at all to keep this diary up to date. So apologies to myself only, the single recorded reader of these accounts of the times and the wines of Rives-Blanques. When last seen, we were locked […]
A curious kind of apathy seems to have settled on us as the lockdown days drift past, although it’s certainly busy enough in the vineyard. There’s more than enough to do, that’s not the problem. Even the world beyond seems to be shifting gear and driving into our in-box. And brimful it is, too, full to […]
Wednesday April 1 Is this an April Fool’s joke, or what? Not a single bottle sold in a month, and now suddenly there are two huge trucks in our courtyard, one to collect a pallet of wine for Germany, and another half a pallet for Switzerland. And they both arrive at the same time, both cautiously wending […]
Wednesday 5 March It’s literally “heaven-sent” Jan says, looking at the curtain of rain firmly closed around us. Just made to order for our newly planted Mauzac vines. They’re happy, and we’re happy. The empty tanks in the cellar have filled up to the brim with rainwater syphoned down from the roof gutters, and now we have […]