Chateau Malaudos

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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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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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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Well, the vineyard survived the second onslaught of hail yesterday.  The tender buds are still intact and the nascent grapes and apples get another chance at life.  What a relief. 

On Wednesday the paysagiste Michel Reboul turned up with his team to dig up the vines at the top of the amphitheatre.  This is the steepest part of our land and has always been a bit of a nightmare.  The only time we took the quad up there Lizzie had to hang off the uphill side of it like a windsurfer to stop it toppling down the hill.  (Please don't try this at home!) Many of the Cinsault vines there died when the vineyard was more or less abandoned and the rest have struggled ever since so it feels as if we've cleared out a dusty attic now they're gone.   

After two days of rain the soil was pretty damp and in perfect condition for pulling up vines apparently.    They were about 50 years old I guess and, like icebergs, most of the plant lives below the surface - some of the root systems went on for metres. 

 

 

The lovely Christophe was the artist behind the digger-levers which he manipulated like a master puppeteer, and his even lovelier assistant was our very own Josh who worked like a Trojan all day long lugging heavy vines up and down the hill and building them into a souche wall. 

 

 

We reckon there's enough firewood there to see us through next winter.

 

When they finished that they set to work filling in the road by the mazet parcelle, shoving a huge rock under Olive's foot and digging over the grassy bit near the reservoir which Lizzie wants to turn into a lawn.  The two of them got through the most incredible amount of work that day, "happy work" Josh called it.  He was pleased as punch to be working on his land and it was fantastic to see him in his professional role as apprentice landscape gardener.

 

 

The countryside is in full bloom right now, carpeted with irises, spring flowers and, here and there, tender shoots of wild asparagus.  It's so fine it's quite difficult to spot but it's worth the effort, the succulent tips taste like the freshest peas straight from the pod.  There are two sure-fire ways of finding it.  One is to suck up to any old boy you see clutching a bulging carrier bag and the other is to dog the footsteps of Kit who has become the world's greatest living Asparagus-Hound.  Quick as a flash she spots her quarry and before you can say "Ooh, wouldn't that be lovely roasted with some olive oil and rock salt" she's bitten off the tip, scoffed the lot and tuned her asparagus radar to a new bearing.  We're wondering if she might transfer this skill to truffle-hunting though holding her back after she'd got a taste for the "black gold" is a daunting, and expensive, notion.   

 

 

Meanwhile, here's a little something for Marianne.  Yes, sweetheart your spuds are on the move and lookin' good. As you can see, everything in the garden is just lovely.  

 

 

 

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We've come full circle. This time last year we had yet to finalise buying the land and  vines, but the then owner, M. Gineste,  let us start the pruning. Today I began again, but this time I have much more idea about how the vines actually grow, and how the pruning affects the end result.

So today I began making next year's wine. For the care taken now whilst pruning will do more to more to influence the final product than anything else we do during the course of the year. If we get it right now we have a chance of having strong healthy vines on which will grow heavy bunches of concentrated fruit. Get it wrong and we will have straggly weak vines producing hundreds of tiny bunches of, primarily, skin.

To be frank, last year we really didn't know what we were doing at all, but this time, after a year of watching the vines like hawks, we have a much better idea. So now we plan to do things differently. We've decided which vines we want to keep and which will go. Some are very weak, and others are on such a sharp slope that we haven't a chance of looking after them properly. So those will be grubbed up when we've found someone who can help us with the task. That should leave us with around 5000 grenache, syrah, cinsault, carignan and muscat petit grain.

This is a tiny number of vines by any normal standard, but we have a B&B to run all summer so our time is limited then. However, in winter we have lots of time to concentrate on all the physical work like pruning and land-clearing. We also have lots of volunteers coming in February to help us with some interesting projects in the vineyards, so it'd be great if we could get all the pruning done by then.

At the moment they look like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and we need them to be as tidy as this:

 

But they go on way beyond where you can see in this photo - and that doesn't include the other 2500 in the amphitheatre.

 

I had a wonderful time in the sunshine today, pruning, picking up the offcuts (les sarments) and burning them, then brushcutting between the vines to finish the job. That's just two rows, but it's a start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're in the area and fancy helping just give us a call on 04 67 24 64 37

The wild boar (les sangliers) are still up to their tricks. There are long and deep areas where the sangliers have ploughed up the ground. We're just praying they're not doing too much damage.

 

 

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We are thrilled to bits to announce that we are the very first vineyard in France to use a new type of wine bottle closure called the ZORK. Here's a picture of our bottles with ZORK recyclable plastic closures.

 

ZORK is a revolutionary wine closure with the convenience of screw cap and the pop of a cork. There are 15 billion wines bottled each year. Around 10% of wines bottled with cork are spoiled by the failure of the closure. ZORK is an alternative wine closure that has been developed in Australia to solve the global problems of cork taint and random oxidation.

 

 

 

Here's a demo.

 

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Some while ago Ali, Justin & I spent the most fantastic day learning to blend wine - and creating our own bottle to take home.

 

 

 

Several of you asked if there would be other opportunities to do it - well here are the upcoming dates:

Sunday 30 November 2008
Saturday 28 February 2009
Saturday 2 May 2009
Sunday 26 July 2009
Saturday 17 October 2009

If you would like to come to any of the assemblage days do contact Hans & Christa at Domaine Bourdic.

I promise it will be one of the most memorable and enjoyable days of your life.

 

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During the summer we met Tim Manning , maker of some absolutely delicious wines at Il Borghetto in Tuscany. He was one of those guests we felt we should be paying, so helpful were the discussions over various bottles of local Languedoc wines.

As new winemakers we are learning all the time, and a new concept for us was that of 'cellar palate' introduced to us by Tim. Basically this means that your palate gets used to a set of wine flavours that centre on the wines that you drink all the time. For us that's wines from about a 20km radius from Le Couvent . Tim encouraged us to taste as many wines as possible to avoid cellar palate. I take his point.

Then yesterday, while ambling along at the Ballade Vigneron , I was discussing wine with long-time local resident Peter Stone. He told me about Coteaux-du-Langedoc , centred at Domaine Saporta in Montpellier where they showcase around 400 wines from this region. His trick is to tell the extremely knowledgeable Frederique, the caviste,  that he wants to spend an average of say 10 euros a bottle on 48 bottles. That allows for some quaffing wine and some extravagances. However, his main criterion is that the wine must be interesting and pushing some boundaries. Not the same old, same old. I was very excited by this notion and I reckon it's a good way to head off cellar palate at the pass. Once we've got the hang we'll explore further.

As for our own wine, we tasted it again yesterday. It's just one month old, so is a bit rough around the edges. But it reminds me of one of those films where you know the ugly boy with spots, greasy hair and  specs is going to be the handsome hunk that gets the girl by the end. Either I have relentless optimism, or our pals are all lying to us - a distinct possibility. On being offered a quick tasting each pal has looked sceptical. Unspoken thought "how am I going to tell her this tastes like udder-wash?". Nanoseconds later the eyebrows rise, a smile flashes, unspoken thought "phew". "Bloody 'ell, that's not at all bad. I'm astounded"

So are we.

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Today's blog post has been written by Doug & Caroline, who came to Le Couvent, Roujan hoping that they could take part in our grape harvest.

Following a long drive to Roujan on Monday two weeks ago, we arrived to a very warm welcome from Liz & Ali, only to find the weather had put a premature end to this year's grape harvest. Therefore no vendange for us this year, however as some of the harvest had been salvaged there was the option to be involved with the next process, turning it into wine (yip-pee).

Thanks to lots of hard work before we arrived the grapes had already been transported into the village were in a vat and starting to ferment. So twice a day the fermenting grape & juice mix had to be mixed by hand & on the 2nd occasion daily the specific gravity of the liquid had to be measured for percentage of potential alcohol.

Within a few days of doing this the mixture was at its prime, and time to extract the grapes from the juice, it was decided that Sunday would be the ideal time for this 1100 to be exact. Sunday 1100 we all met at the Cave (Caroline, Liz, Ali, Colin, Judith, Justine, Michelle, Josh & I) ready to start the separation process. This involved draining the grape juice from one tank into another (by bucket), after we had transferred approximately 280ltrs of liquid from the first tank all that was left was the remaining grapes. These grapes still had potential to produce more juice so they needed to be taken out of the tank & be pressed, this meant that someone would have to get in to the tank and bucket the remaining contents out. I was that volunteer, so off with the shoes & socks, down to my speedo's and in I got.

What a sensation paddling in soggy grapes being overwhelmed by the pungent smell they were giving off. It was great. Once the remaining contents of the tank had been transferred to smaller containers and put into a van, we all went a few kilometres to where the press was situated. We all then took it in turns to press the juice from the grapes, which resulted in a further 100ltrs of juice that could be added to the 280ltrs back at the Cave.

The following day we did exactly that, so there is now nearly 400ltrs of premium Chateau Mal Au Dos vintage 2008 maturing in a secrete location somewhere in Roujan. Despite not being able to pick any grapes on this visit to Roujan we have had a fantastic time and feel very honoured to be part of the team that helped produced the very first batch of wine from Chateau Mal Au Dos. And who knows what other years will bring..

A very, very honoured & overwhelmed Doug & Caroline

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So yesterday was the day when we drew the wine off the skins, pips and snails (I jest), then pressed the marc to release further wine. Here are the photos of what was the most stupendously wonderful day.

 

 

 First we drew off the running wine and tipped it into the second cuve.

 

 

With a little tasting and spitting on the way. Here's Colin who, with his wife, Judy, called in to Le Couvent to see us on the very day we were pressing the wine from the vines we'd given them in May - despite being in the middle of a six month long tour of southern Europe. Naturally, they were dragged in to help.

 

 

 Josh even came down in his dressing-gown to check out the commotion.

 

 

 Happy vigneronnes, Lizzie & Ali

 

 

The remaining marc, once the wine had been drained off. The difficulty now  is that the marc is at the bottom of the cuve, so someone has to get in and bucket it out. That'll be Doug's job then.

 

 

Once in the tank he passes the marc to Caroline who lobs it into buckets. These will be taken by van to Domaine Bourdic where our half-share of the pressoir lives. The press weighs a ton, so it's easier to take the marc there.

 

 

Job done, Doug then has to climb out from the bottom of the empty tank - which could easily tip. Extra hands needed.

 

 

 Spotless feet.

 

 

 Marc in the van ready to go to Domaine Bourdic.

 

 

 Once there Justin, Josh & Doug pour the marc into the press.

 

 

 Ali checks it.

 

 

 Everybody gets busy.

 

 

Lizzie & Ali have a go at working the press. Really good fun and great to see more wine running.

 

 

 

 

 

 Caroline & Doug also have a go.

 

 

Michelle, Josh & Justin pour the recovered wine (vin de presse) back into buckets for us to take back to add to the original wine.

 

 

Tastes great. So much so that our wine teachers Hans & Christa say they are astonished that it's OK after all it's been through.

 

 

 Once pressed the skins and pips now resemble grape crumble.

 

 

 All hands are needed to tear the cake apart.

 

 

 Caroline starts washing out buckets while the next lot of marc is pressed.

 

 

 More wine runs from the second batch.

 

 

 Now we have 100 litres more to add to the 300 litres at home.

 

 

 Justin checks it is all OK. It is.

 

 

The press needs scrubbing. The red grapes have coloured the wood and Hans needs to press white grapes in it next.

 

 

Back home at Justin's house we set to cleaning the first tank.

 

 

 Do my hips look any slimmer with the diet? I think not.

 

 

 Feet are no cleaner though.

 

 

Tank clean and ready to wait for next year.

Meanwhile the 100 litres of vin de presse has to stand for 24 hours having had a meagre amount of sulphite and some pectin added. This will stop any remaining yeast and stabilise the wine. After that we'll add it to the original wine, float the lid on it and leave it until the Spring.

Many thanks to everyone who helped yesterday. It was huge fun and we learnt a lot. Ali and I hope you enjoyed it too.  We raise a glass to Hans, Christa, Justin, Michelle, Josh, Caroline, Doug, Judy & Colin. Thank you so much.

Roll on the Spring eh?

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Since we picked the tiny amount of Syrah & Cinsault left after the storms, the grape juice and yeast has been working away. To the sounds of snap, crackle and pop the sugars in the juice feed the yeast which, in turn, kindly turns the juice to wine. The skins and pips all rise to the surface leaving the young wine below. This is a difficult situation because we don't want the skins to start oxidising - they'll turn the wine to vinegar. So twice a day we have to punch the cap of marc down into the must (the juice). It's very hard work, but thankfully we've had guests Doug & Caroline staying at Le Couvent and they've willingly taken on the task.

 

 

 

 

 

Each day we measure the alcohol content of the wine to check whether the majority of the fermentation is complete. We also taste the wine to see if it's approaching the flavours, tannins, acidity and so on that we want.

 

 

 

Yesterday evening Doug & Caroline brought back a sample of the wine for Le Couvent guests to taste. It's just a week old and we had no choice over the grapes we could use, but it's not bad at all.

 

 

 

We've taken the decision that we're going to draw the wine (the must) off the cap (the marc) today. So as soon as breakfast is over we'll toddle off to my brother's house where the wine-making is happening.

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As soon as we saw the damage and realised we had just a few grapes we could rescue if we did it immediately, we started ringing round our team. Within one hour of seeing the damage we had thirteen pals and all the equipment in the vineyard. What fantastic friends. We hit the remaining grapes like demons possessed in that thundery heat that threatens another storm. To the chorus of endless yells of 'BUCKET' meaning 'this ones full and I need another' - a signal for the porters to hurry over bringing empty buckets and lugging off the full ones, we cleared the surviving grapes in less than three hours.

 

 

 

As you can see, the grapes are not pretty. The hail has smashed them open, but they might just be usable if we're quick.

There's so little that we have decided to use them to make some wine for ourselves, so we take them to our new cuves at my brother, Justin's, house.

The grapes come up to the 750 litre mark on the cuve, but that includes stalks and skins so we'll have precious little when all that gets taken off eventually.

As if the day hasn't already been difficult enough, the cuve containing the grapes decides to lurch into a jaunty angle thanks to a rather-too-soft floor. There's only one thing for it, we have to move all of the grapes into the second tank. And there's only one way to do it - by getting into the tank with the grapes.

Here's Michelle, my sister-in-law, getting down and dirty with the grapes.

 

Now, you have to understand that we are wine-making virgins and all this has come upon us with a rush. So a hurried phone call to the charming and helpful winemaker, Simon Coulshaw , gave us these instructions.

And those led to a rather inexpert approach to measuring out the stabiliser and yeast.

 

After the addition of the stabiliser and yeast we got our mate Kate to say a few fine words to encourage the mass to turn to ruby nectar.

Now it's up to Bacchus and a fair wind.

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This is the scene that greeted us this morning. We have almost nothing left. Last night we had the most enormous rain and hailstorm. We spent the morning in the roof repairing a leak, then went to the cave co-operative to see if they had a date for the harvest. 'Have you looked at your vines yet? We have an emergency and if you have more than 20% hail damage you can harvest all your grapes now, whatever variety' We shot up to the vineyards and were greeted by scenes of devastation. A tornado had passed and ripped off every bunch of grapes and the plum-sized hailstones had shredded of every bit of leaf on 95% of the vines. In the picture above you can see one bunch of grapes caught in the branches of the vine. All the others have been ripped off and carried off by the deluge to God knows where. There's no sign of them here.

 

 

 

Not a pretty sight eh? There is barely a leaf left on any of the vines. The only vines with any grapes left on are the Syrah and Cinsault in the amphitheatre. All the vines on the upper slopes are completely naked.

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Today we took a sample of 200 of each variety of grapes, picked at random, down to the cave co-operative to be tested. We stood in line with all the other vigneron waiting for Mme La Cave to squish our grapes and tell us the potential alcohol. When they have gathered all the results they can then declare when we can harvest our grapes and deliver them off to the cave.

Our grapes all came out higher than anyone else's with our Syrah having a potential alcohol of 15.4%. That's enormous and all the other wine-growers had between 10.5% and 12.5%. Ours are this high because we have a relatively low yield, but of high quality thanks to very heavy pruning in the winter. Now we have to wait until the average is high enough, then we get the go ahead. We have all our buddies lined up to go at the drop of a hat and the trailer is loaded with dozens of buckets, crates, secateurs, rubber gloves and sun tan lotion.

Now we just need a date. It's all very exciting. This is how the vines look today. 

 

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