Chateau Malaudos

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We're in the process of becoming registered as private winemakers (cave particuliere) which, amongst a ton of other things, involves a trip to the Customs Office. The chap who deals with us is a jolly bully and sends us away with homework on a regular basis. The most recent task was to measure every parcel of land, noting each grape variety to see how they compare with his records. They have us down as having three varieties in two large plots, where, in fact, we have  six varieties over three cadastral areas. No doubt we shall be in big trouble as that's what he threatens each time we visit. On the other hand, as the vines have been there for over 30 years, we can hardly be held culpable. I was dreading the measuring task as none of our plots is square, but rather in large curves as in an amphitheatre.

 

 

But my trusty iPhone came to the rescue. I found a fab application called AreaFinder - Land Area Calculator - which allowed me to measure all the separate parcels in half an hour, just by walking each perimeter and pressing a button at each turn. Amazingly our total land area figure agreed with those at the Customs Office. Thanks once again iPhone.
 

 

 

Two of our lovely volunteers, Peter & Linda, gave us a white flesh peach tree which I was finally able to plant this morning. It's been too cold and I was afraid the bitter winds would see it off, but two things made me think today would be a good day. Firstly, I spotted some early wild asparagus growing in the hedgerow yesterday, and then last night our favourite pipistrelle bat, Billy,  came out of hibernation and was wheeling about outside our window, full of the joys.

 

 

This week I'm off to the vineyard to dig over the potager ready for Spring planting and finish strimming all the Grenache and Carignan vines. I'll have extra company. Alfie the dog who lives at The Stone House B&B in Caux is coming for a short holiday. Our two will be thrilled to have their pal on a sleepover. I feel chaos looming.

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Such excitement today when we arrived at the vineyard in glorious sunshine and being told that we were to be split into two teams and each gang would build a dry stone seat in different areas to fully appreciate the views. Our team's seat was to be positioned looking over a natural area of garrigue with an amazing view across to Caux.

 

 

 

 

We marked out its size and shape with string and stakes and were told to use a pile of rocks that had been collected,  but not to choose a specific rock, just to pick one, twist it, turn it, invert it and in most instances it would fit.

 

 

Absolutely no cement, glue, bubble gum or any form of fixative was used in the making, but slowly rock by rock we built stunning structures that not only looked awesome, but stood up to the sitting test!

 

 

What we had all achieved working together was so gratifying and satisfying I cannot truly explain. We had built something totally organic and lasting that we were exceptionally proud of.

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When we told people we would be helping on a vineyard for a week almost without exception their immediate response was 'what treading grapes?'.  Given the time of year we knew that wouldn't be the case.  We expected to weed and hoe, trim and tidy; little did we anticipate  we would actually be be excavating steps or having a crash course in dry stone seat building.

 

This week has been an incredible experience.  Lizzie and Ali have been wonderful teachers, supportive team builders, great hosts and caring friends.  From Day 1 when we first walked through the vines our combined enthusiasm grew to help them in their quest.

Within hours we found ourselves clearing areas and building bonfires. Hoeing has been a high priority and has featured every day but we still have more to do.  At first it seemed arduous, however as we became more accustomed to the task we were able to turn it into a positive time to get to know each other. Everyday bonfires have been burning,  chain saws screaming and strimmers too. Olive trees choked by years of neglect have been freed of the burden of too much growth, so much so instead of letting the light and rain in there's now room for an albatross to roost.

As we left today the vineyard had four new additions, two dry stone seats, one at the top of the amphitheatre named Louie's seat and another on the edge of New Zealand named the Caux seat with a view of Caux across the vines. In addition two lemon trees have been planted close to the mazet in memory of Chris's Mum, always to be known as Cissie's trees.

 

 

 

There is one day left before we go our separate ways and it won't be enough to finish the hoeing or complete all the tasks on the list but the sun has shone, we will go home fitter than when we arrived and certainly more sympathetic to how much work goes into making a bottle of wine.

 

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With hands still shaking from 2 hours on the bushwhacker this morning, I can hardly write this blog!

It was an early start as we were only doing a half day today as most of the team were a bit shattered from the day before. Dark clouds and rain met us as we came down to breakfast and there was some discussion whether it was a good idea to go up to the vineyard . Lizzie suggested we all took the  whole day off, this was met with a resounding "no fear". What a brave, hardworking team!

The rain took a break as we made our way up and we got just over two hours hard work packed in before it started again. Linda did an excellent job of 'styling' the small garden in front of the mazet while Andrew started digging up little trees and repositioning them on the bank above the amphitheatre. More strimming and burning, more digging and hoeing.

Rain stopped play at noon and lunch was taken in the nice warm and dry kitchen at Le Couvent. It was a bit quiet as I think we've all hit the 'mid week wall' zzzzzzzz.

The lucky ones got to have a kip this afternoon, those of us with other errands had to dash off in the rain again!  The grounds are all really beginning to come together as a result of our efforts.

Before our house is passed on to its new owners at the end of April, Sue and I have decided to dig up two lemon trees that are currently in our garden at Maison Vanille that my mum bought for us when she was in France in 2006 - our last holiday together before she died in the following December. We are going to christen them "Cissy's lemons" and plant them up at the mazet.  They'll always be a reminder of my lovely Mum in a lovely place. I know that she'd really like that.

Sarah and Andrew are busily preparing tonight's meal as I write. Boeuf Bourguinon. Hooray!

Its still raining though. Chucking it down in fact!

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Okay, today is Tuesday 2nd March and it is beautiful weather here in Roujan. Everyone arrives for our delicious breakfast, prepared by Andrew and Sarah. Then it is all hands to the wheel to get us up to the vineyard.
We arrive with our energy at the ready and start by each planting a Eucalyptus tree and putting our name on it. The plan is to have an avenue of these wonderful trees to walk under.

 

 

We go on gathering old pieces of wood, sarments, to burn. Sarah and Linda look as if they are in medieval times, like magical witches captured by the fire which is licking around them as they throw the sarments onto the flames.

 

 

We are using the yellow muncher to munch old weeds and hoes to finish the weeding of the vines, together with seagull manure to fertilize the vines, yum!

The sun is shining and there is a gentle breeze keeping us cool and able to work for hours. Time flies by and Lizzie gathers us
into a change, sorry, I mean chain gang on the side of the hill.  We are looking into an area of overgrown land referred to as New Zealand, because the kiwi plants grow there. We have Sue and Andrew at the bottom of the hill, hauling and pulling old glass bottles, plastic, old equipment, tyres and other amazing bits of rubbish. The rest of the team wait with anticipation to see what is going to appear from the brambles and thickets of trees. There is a lot of stuff under there!! Chris is packing the trailer to the maximum and keeping it firmly in place so it does not
fly off on the journey to the dump.

 

Within a very short space of time we have moved to pruning, clearing, burning and seeing a wonderful expanse of the vineyard coming into view.
With one part of the chain gang taking the rubbish to the dump and the remaining members moving on to discover olive trees under brambles we are feeling inspired to be even more creative as we finish our lunch of excellent soup, crunchy bread, cheese and ham.

 

 

The discovery of massive stones under the previously overgrown and hidden ground leads to serious decisions to build stairways from one level
to another. This is reminding us of the steps that were found and built last year at Volunteer week. Dougie and Caroline do you recall that? We miss you guys, you know!! Sue has been digging like an Irish navvi and made, with some help from the rest of the gang, six lovely deep steps from one level to another.

In the meantime Linda has excavated some enormous stones and found another stairway along the slope. We are all involved with one activity or another and again time flies and the day is done on the vineyard. The weather has been wonderful, blue skies all day and the almond trees are beginning to blossom.

We pack everything away, tools, tractors, munchers, dogs and people and arrive back to a lovely shower and a cup of tea at Le Couvent.

This evening we are having a meal of Smoked Salmon Gratin cooked by Michelle and Karen. There is going to be wine tasting during our meal, presented by Deborah and Peter Core from Mas Gabriel in Caux.

What lucky, lucky people we are!!!!

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It's cold today.  English weather.  No wind to speak of, just heavy, dull, grey cold.  Not a grand day to be pruning but we're panicking a bit now as to how we can finish in time, so needs must.
Lizzie is trying out some power-assisted secateurs she bought last year.  They're a bit scary, though nothing like as scary as the ones the pros use which slice through metal, vines and fingers willy-nilly.  The great thing about them though is that they leave you a free hand so you can gather up the sarments (vine shoots) while you prune.  With the two-handed pruners you have to pick up the pruned shoots from the ground which is horribly tough on the back.   Meanwhile, I was topping off all the long, snaky stems and burning them in Hot Pegasus our jolly burner on pram wheels which we're also considering calling Stanley's Pram in honor of Stanley Spencer.  Don't ask.. Or if you must, ask Lizzie.

 

 

 

 

 

It's fantastic to look down the lanes between the vines and see them free of wood and detritus.  It's the first time we've been able to do that and Stanley's Pram is working a real treat.  We know pruning and burning simultaneously will save us a lot of time in the long run, but right now it's taking twice as long.  Perhaps when the weather warms up we'll find a willing pyromaniac to help.
When we'd pruned the last of the syrah we retreated to the caravan for a cuppa leaving Flynn tied up outside mournfully watching a flock of tasty sheep on the far hill.  Kit thundered into Olive and buried her head in Lizzie's lap.
"What's up?" asked Lizzie.
"Brrrrrgnarybrrrrr," said Kit.
"Oh poppet, your ears are frozen," cried Lizzie, "lucky you didn't shake them, they'd have snapped right off."
We warmed them up and found an old jacket of Lizzie's and slipped it on.  I'm considering tailoring one for her, as this one obviously didn't impress her.  I think she thought it was the wrong colour for a redhead.

 

 

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Ali's promised to write a blog (she's the word-wizard) about the harvest that took place at the end of August. Come back in a day or two for the full story.

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We've taken you through all our trials and tribulations over the last year, right up to a couple of weeks ago when our tiny quantity of wine had a stuck fermentation. But the addition of lees from Hans' finished wine kick-started ours, and within less than two weeks our malolactic fermentation was completed. We received the long-awaited -mail from the oenologue, then we had to take in a second sample for verification. My heart was racing as I opened her e-mail a day later. Confirmed. Hooray!

Now we had to take the wine off the lees, and add a tiny amount of sulfite to stop the wine oxidising. At this point we had the first taste of the finished wine. We'd been fully expecting cooking wine, and had prepared a cookery book of red wine recipes to go with it, but to our great surprise the wine actually tastes good.

 

 

I like it - enough to have a second and third glass. And to look forward to drinking it. After all we've gone through over the last year I can hardly believe it.

Anyway, enough boasting. Ali and I spent a day and a half manually filling and labelling a very limited edition of 364 bottles.

 

 

Of course we're using the wonderful Zorks instead of cork for the closures, and I can reveal the full set of labels.

 

 

364 bottles of very drinkable wine rescued from a hail-filled tornado. We're thrilled to bits.

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You'll remember that we have made some wine from what remained after last year's tornado and hail storm the night before the harvest. The wine has been sitting in a tank in my brother's cave since last September, happily going through its alcoholic fermentation, then resolutely refusing to finish the malolactic fermentation.

We had the wine tested by the oenologue about five times during the past few weeks and it just hasn't budged.  It can't be bottled until it's finished and we're losing patience. Malolactic fermentation (malo) is a process used to reduce acid in wine where malic acid (like apples) is altered by natural means to softer-tasting lactic (like milk) acid. It happens thanks to the presence of lactobacteria, but in our case, as neither the cave nor the cuve have been used for winemaking for years, there just aren't any of the little bacteria-blighters about.

So yesterday we went of to our pal Hans to beg some lees - the bacteria-rich gloop left in the bottom of the tank when the fermentation is over. One of his wines had just finished its malo so we're trusting that the lees will kick off our recalcitrant wine.

 

 

We had a tussle with the floating cuve lid (le chapeau flottant) which had stuck firmly to the sides of the tank. It has a thing like a bicycle tube around the outside which holds the lid in place when inflated. So, having prised it free, we just swapped the lid for one from another tank and swilled down the dodgy one before we buy a new tube.

 

 

My niece Poppy came to lend a hand. She's not vaguely interested in wine-making but likes to be useful and clamber about above the tanks.

 

 

Meanwhile all of us got the blue hands of red winemakers.

 

 

Now we just have our fingers crossed that the wine is bubbling away with its new bacteria. The temperature is around 30-34 degrees centigrade here at the moment so it shouldn't take too long. I'm guessing we'll need to re-test in a couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted.

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Ali & I had a great evening eating delicious tapas in the vineyards of Domaine Bourdic . Hans & Christa, the winemakers there, are our good friends and I asked them about our 'stuck' malolactic fermentation. Hans has a solution. He's going to give us some lies from his wine which has just finished its 'malo'. This should contain enough of the necessary bacteria to get ours moving. He too has some slow wines so that's restored my confidence a bit. I thought it was all my fault.

So today I've spent a bit of time creating some new labels for our wine. This is the first of a series of four.

 

 

 You'll have to wait to see the rest.......

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The temperatures at Chateau Malaudos are stifling at the moment. The vines aren't at their best either, having taken the most awful battering during last September's hail-filled tornado. I think they look weakened and they really have very little fruit hanging. We've also suffered a bit from oidium thanks to hot and wet weather during the Spring. So we're sort of cutting our losses this year. It's likely we'll have precious few grapes to take to the Cave Co-operative; we'll just keep the best and make our own wine.

 

As for last year's meagre drop of wine, it's still trying to complete its malolactic fermentation. The wine is pretty high alcohol and the cave also hadn't been used for wine-making for years, so the necessary bacteria just aren't there. We're waiting to see our proper wine-making friends tonight to ask them what to do next.

 

 

Meanwhile the mazet looks pretty much like the building in this lovely painting by Julian Merrow-Smith . The postcard sized artwork is currently up for auction. Have a llok back through his archives - there's some wonderful work.

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I've written before about the kindness of other winemakers and just how supportive they've been. Just the other day I received this e-mail, out of the blue, from our lovely friend Peter Core who makes delicious biodynamic wine at Mas Gabriel .

"Dear Lizzie

I hope all is well.  Just a quick note to say that performance bio keep warning about high risk for mildew, which we treat with copper.  We have only seen a couple of taches so far but I think it would be worthwhile to keep up the bouille bordelaise (sulphur and ½ dose of copper) for the moment.  I think you have a poudreuse and if so it would be good to put on some powdered sulphur in about two weeks time, as an extra treatment mid-way between your wet sprays, which you should be doing every 10 days.
 
We are still working flat out with the young vines, as well as tucking and de-budding all the rest, and worst of all trying to control the weeds.
 
If you have any problems in the vineyard don’t hesitate to call.

Peter"

Now isn't that the kindest thing? There they are, in the middle of their own vineyard stresses, and he bothers to write to us wine-making neonates who happen to have bought a view with vines strewn all over it. I suspect kind winemakers make agreeable wine and Peter and Deborah make very agreeable wine indeed. Karma. Here's the website again, just in case you would like to know more. Mas Gabriel Biodynamic and Organic Wine, Caux, Languedoc Roussillon

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I've been blithering on about the spraying for weeks now, but it's our biggest headache at this time of the year. Worse still, we chose this year to move to organic treatments, so timing is even more critical.

We should be treating every ten days in the current weather conditions, but therein lies the problem. There is barely a day when there isn't too much rain, or wind, or heat, or the threat of any of those three. So, in theory one needs a still, cool, dry part of the day when rain is not forecast. Simple. Except that we have to do breakfast for our B&B guests and see them on their way before we can start our vineyard day - by which time it is already too hot. So we're struggling.

We'd hoped to spray the day before yesterday, but we were too late and it was boiling. We tried again yesterday but torrential storms were forecast, and after a frustratingly dry day, the heavens opened overnight. So now the vines are completely soaked so we have to wait for them to dry a bit. The trailer's been loaded with Puffing Billy the sulfateuse for the past three days awaiting the moment. I suspect it will be tomorrow morning - poor Ali. It's her birthday and her worst present in the whole wide world would be to get up early.

 

 

 

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Here's a good, speedy introduction to the fantastic art of barrel-making. Bear in mind that they're over 700 euros each and only take 225 litres when you swig that next glass of oak-aged red. Though beware, if the wine label says 'oaked' that could mean the winemaker has just dipped a large teabag full of oak chips in it. Another thing entirely.

 

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