Responsible but not guilty
In signing his name, he thereby wins my esteem… the soi-disant Lionel Lamadon, makes fun of me on one of the French bulletin boards (Iacchos). And I quote:
« Personally, What really makes me laugh in this whole story is the very pompous reference to Thoreau (it’s for us to appreciate the comparison and [...]
Frankly nasty, never happy
In the middle of an avalanche of emails and positive telephone calls, some people and I pity them in as much as I imagine them unhappy, spit out their venom on the Walden project (see HERE). I was expecting it, of course, but the violence and the views taken by some really surprised me. An [...]
Return home
The week had announced itself as busy and it had been. Return after midday after four marathon non-stop days, practically a bottle permanently in my hand. OK, a glass too sometimes
Terrific broadcast, to really get it going, with Jean-Pierre Coffe. For those that missed it and would would like to try and listen [...]
En route for the capital
Strange how human beings change. Although I lived 20 years in Paris with happiness, to return there doesn’t bring me any real pleasure. Oh, I know that once my feet touch the ground of the airport, I am going to find my old habits, my step will pick up, and finally, after a few hours, [...]
Drawing off
One day or another, one must decide to draw off the ‘vin de goutte’. This ‘ecoulage’ completes the cycle of transformation of the juice of the grape into wine. It is to put the full stop at the end of a phrase. It is to pass in some way from one world to another, then [...]
Fermentations
If the harvests indisputably mark the end of a cycle, the fermentations mark, for me, another. Without doubt, because I am not born a wine-maker but I chose to become one, this phase of transformation always remains for me an intense moment of marvel and joy.
To sense this life, these millions of yeasts in [...]
Faites vos jeux. Les jeux sont faits. Rien ne va plus !
Faites vos jeux. Les jeux sont faits. Rien ne va plus !
"If you want ot make good wine, be the last to harvest". This adage which doesn’t date from yesterday (Virgile, that’s 50 years before Christ and I swore to read ‘Bucoliques’ this year), always seems to be current. It opens the first letter [...]
Let’s be positive
Following my rather long intervention on ‘iacchos’ [a French newsgroup on wine] a reader has sent this magnificent quotation that I don’t know and which has brightened my day. Thank you to the unknown and very cultivated Renè Vigouroux:
"All men who direct, who make something have next to them those who would like to [...]
Saint-Michel and the flamboyant Carignan
For a long time, I believed that the spring equinox fell on 21 September.
Today, now that I am more in tune with the seasons and climate, I know that because of the idiosyncracies of the Gregorian calendar this date is variable (you too can improve yourself thanks to the internet and shine in society [...]
Cuts, sores and bruises
From October 3, 2005
Incredible the number of wounds, bruises, knocks and cuts one suffers during the harvest and wine-making.
In the line of fire, one feels practically nothing, except perhaps when one cuts the end of one’s finger with the secateurs, or when one steps back hitting a palette very hard, [...]
A cross between a grub and a lazybones
From Sunday 3 October, 2005
There was a time when, not making wine and not even having the idea or the hope of making it one day, I idealised a little, or even a lot, on the daily life of the vigneron.
For you see, in truth, the vigneron’s Sunday in the middle of the [...]
No comment
Impossible to keep to myself any longer one of my adventures the other weekend (with the best and most honourable intentions…)
One of my old Parisian friends contacted me on a Friday evening and announced that he was coming down to Lavinia to say ‘hi’. «That way, I will taste your latest wines. In fact, [...]
I have a dream-
From 30th September, 2005
So not much later this afternoon, when I was perched on my ladder, in the process of sorting after the de-stemming, something which doesn’t require much concentration but all the same a certain manual dexterity, a thought of great consequence came to me (it is worth saying it ). In rummaging [...]
12 hours a day with pleasure…
From Thursday 29th September, 2005
This evening, you are going to know why, I remember this expression…
It is the title of one of the special issues of the magazine «Autrement». I must have read it when I was doing my BTS in management at the l’École Hôtelière de Nice. Which is to say it [...]
A bitter-sweet week.
From Tuesday 27 September, 2005
Good, I can see that a week has passed without my writing anything on this blog. Several reasons for that…
Firstly and above all, the main reason, is that to stir for 6 or 7 hours 70 litre tubs and to write at the same time are two completely incompatible [...]