New Year’s Eve comes and New Year’s Eve goes, painting red all over our sky and against the Pyrenees – trying hard to portend good things. Looks uplifting, anyway. For sure, the last night of 2020 burnt itself up in a flame burning tiger-bright all over the sky, and the first day of 2021 announced itself with Homeric ‘rosy fingers of dawn’, clutching at our hearts and our hopes. And with reason too: there is a vaccine against Covid. There is prudence and propriety returning to the White House. Maybe soon restaurants, bars and hotels will open again. Maybe our sales will pick up. Maybe life will go back to normal this year. Maybe.
But reservations linger. The French word normalement teaches us that “normal” has an impressively sliding scale. And apart from that, what kind of a new year can it possibly be when all our main actors are fast asleep in Cépie at midnight (that is, midnight Accra time)?
Tuesday 5 December
Mr Li is one of the few pruners still around who insists on pruning with non-electric, heavy, old fashioned secateurs. He goes for it like a runaway train, there’s no stopping him. Not if it rains, not if it shines, not if it winds, sleets or snows.
We haven’t had snow here for ten years, if memory serves. It’s good for the vines, seeps nitrogen into the soil, and also, curiously, insulates the roots of the vines, keeping them nice and warmy. Kills off bacteria as well. All’s well, as long as the temperature doesn’t plunge dramatically.
But all is not well with Mr Li. We both agree that neither his brother in Canada, nor our Canadian son-in-law, would call this little fluffy flocking of snow, snow. But he is outraged none the less: not because it is snowing, but because the weather forecast failed to forecast it. They told him it would snow in Carcassonne, but that he can he see from his bedroom window. Not a word about Limoux, let alone Cépie, however.
Wednesday 6 December
Nor did the weather forecast warn us about the storm that would rage over Washington DC today. Nothing ‘normal’ about it, no matter how abnormal ‘normal’ has become.
Cool climate Chardonnay
Sunday-driving Mauzac
Saturday 9 December
More snow falling, Canadian style, this time. Rives-Blanques in name, rives blanques in nature.
Pure, pristine proof of our cool climate wines.
Monday December 11
The doyen of Dutch wine writers, Hubrecht Duijker, profiles Rives-Blanques in his “month magazine” this month. It’s a generous article, and generously shared by another Dutch wine publication, Perswijn.
But Duijker puts his own twist on it, apparently following the old adage that a picture can say a thousand words, which is more than we could ever be entitled to. This is a painting he made of Rives-Blanques, actually the Chardonnay pictured above, in more clement times. It actually says it all.
Talented taster, talented writer, talented artist. And a nice person too.
(Too bad the article’s in Dutch, but then, a picture says a thousand words in all languages.)
Tuesday December 12
President Trump gives us a farewell shot: he hijacks the whole French wine industry with a Boeing. And adds 25% tax on all French wines (fizz not included), no matter what alcohol percentage. We read the small print which is full of Boeing bits and pieces, as well as cheese, and dried and fresh fruit, and lots of quid pro quo. US wine importers are upset, and so are we (don’t know about the fruit and veg sector, they don’t appear to be very vocal on the issue). It threatens us all, after all – though possibly more so the niche American importers than us. But we feel it keenly – in fact, it’s probably bye-bye to a good part of our USA market for the time being. The situation, as the head of France Agrimer says, is no longer tenable. The spokesman for Cognac producers adds: “The finger is on the trigger. We must move the gun away from our heads in order to restore a more peaceful situation.”
The assumption all round is that the Biden administration will do something about this and move that gun – but not just yet. They have other, more immediately pressing issues to deal with.
(Too bad about the 20,000-odd bottles of Odyssée that were accidentally labelled with the name of our Massachusetts importer on them: chances are high that no more more than a pallet or two of them will wash up on his shores.)
Friday 15 January
Historic day today! An importer actually comes to visit us! In person! From Belgium! The first, in an uncountably long time.
Wait a minute.
Belgium? That’s one of the Covid hot-spots, isn’t it? And he’s travelling all over the place on the way down?
Hmm.
Family conference. The first generation, who know him and like him, say we must have him for lunch, plus he’s such a nice guy, and we’d really enjoy that. The second generation (who are quite strict) start talking about “underlying issues”, and the fact that nice has nothing to do with contagion.
So this remarkable day passes without a single souvenir or a single shared meal. A true sign of the times.
Thursday January 28
Today we spent a happy morning in the barrel cellar, tasting the barrels holding our 2020 wines, with our friend, master-blender and outsider palate, Pierre Roque. We’re blown away by the Chenin blanc, oh boy, mark my words, this is the year for Dédicace! More spitting, gurgling and deep thinking leads us into the Chardonnay, Odyssée, good but not immediately absolutely fabulous – though we know from experience that our Chardonnay needs its time and shouldn’t be rushed. Anything can happen. But when we get to the four demi-muids (twice as big as the barrels though they don’t really look it) standing attentively in a row, patiently waiting their turn, we are astonished by the finesse, clarity, and utter beauty of the Chardonay in them.
it’s so interesting how different barrels influence the wines in different ways. We diligently keep a record of every barrel and every wine that goes into it, but it gets us absolutely nowhere. A barrel made for us in 2010 may give a fantastic result, convincing us that we should keep more really old barrels, and then we move on to the much younger 2019 barrel right next to it, which gives the wine an old and oxidised taste. It’s not always a question of age (in barrels as in life). Nor of couper. Barrels made by Remond are generally superb for our Chardonnay, so why suddenly is an old Le Grand barrel doing the job so well, whereas the Chenin in Remond barrels is positively shining?
But we’re happy, and write it down as a wonderful morning. (Too bad we can’t go to our local butcher’s canteen for lunch; tasting is hungry business.) The mood is high and buoyant, and we’re looking forward to tasting through all the Mauzac in about a week.
Vintage 2020 looks really good, though of course, I didn’t say that.
…/to be continued.