Wednesday 4 September We’re off! Harvest 2019 has begun. And what a day to begin with! Incredible. Do we live in paradise? Yes, we do, but we’re too busy to raise our heads and enjoy it. There was the petit problème of the brand-new harvesting machine, out on its very first outing. That meant we didn’t […]
Friday August 2 Jan’s out on Blanquette, his Ette dinghy, battling against a non-blowing wind, and a wrong-running tide intent on sending his little clinker-built vessel backwards, despite the cheeky little bowsprit still hopefully pointing towards the finish line. Caryl’s on the wall, watching and enjoying the beautiful day, the balmy air, the soft Irish sunshine, […]
Monday July 1 The brooding, bruised blue sky that has been hanging heavily over us like a woolly blanket for the last few days, settles this morning into a ceiling of impenetrable sullen grey. Little gusts of wind scuttle like wavelets across the land, bringing the huge relief of dry, cooling air. It almost feels cold! […]
Saturday June 1 We call 2018 “the black year”, and so it was: a vintage beset with problems caused by Nature, just to show us, maybe, that you can and should never sit back and relax in the confidence that you and the vineyard can always sort things out between the two of you. You […]
While we weren’t looking, the weather turned cold. Too cold. In other regions, winegrowers set bales of hay alight (one big bale per half vines), or send helicopters overhead in the small hours of the morning (3 helicopters per hour per 150 ha), or light candles in the vineyard (450 candles per 1.5 ha) like a votive to the Ice Saints, […]