Chateau Malaudos

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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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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