Le Couvent Diary

It's been a long time since the last post. August has been our busiest month of the season - not only choc-a-bloc with B&B guests, but also with our grape harvest and wine-making. After the heavy rains in April we had a diminished number of tiny grape florets, already reduced by the after effects of the terrible hail storm last September. This summer has also been officially heatwave hot, so the result for us has been a tiny harvest of very early ripening grapes. We ended up with just three trailer loads like this. A ridiculously small harvest from 2.5 hectares.

 

 

We picked during the third week of August - at least a fortnight early. Since then we have moved our wine-making operation to Le Couvent, where we now have a miniature cave, complete with fermentation tanks and all the paraphernalia you need to make wine.

 

 

Thanks to help from several unsuspecting, yet willing, guests and friends we got our meagre harvest picked in record time, over three early mornings, before the temperatures began to soar.

 

 

Since then we have completed the initial fermentation on two of our three cuvées and will work on the third today. After that it's just a question of regular checking that all is OK until the spring, when a secondary fermentation should take place.

 

The good news is that people seem to really like the wine from last year's fated harvest - L'Orage, a blend made on the hoof while we were picking, Syrah, Cinsault & Grenache. But the truth will be known when our lovely Master of Wine pal, Rosemary George , tastes it on Sunday evening. I'm nervous.

With just over three weeks to go before the end of our season, and a fully booked B&B, I'd be lying if I said Ali and I weren't a bit tired. But reserves get tapped at this time of the year, and we have such lovely guests that it's easy to rise to the occasion. We seem to have laughed our way through the summer thanks to some very funny people, especially all the jolly Americans and Canadians who've pitched up at Le Couvent. Thank you all!

 

Well, at 4.30 I went to inspect the vines and am happy to say that they looked OK. The skies were charcoal and lightning cracked over the hills. Kit the labrador was scared witless and Flynn the husky thought it all rather a good jape.

On the way home the hail fell once more, but I'm hoping it all holds together. This is a photo of the vine buds.

 

 

 

 

Around lunchtime I wandered across the bridge and took some photos around the Le Couvent garden. Everything is in the fullest flower and looking absolutely gorgeous.

 

 

 

 

But just 40 minutes later the sky darkened and down came a waterfall of rain and hail.

 

 

 

 

Now rain is one thing, but regular readers will know that hail is the very thing us wine-makers hate. At the moment our white grapes are at the stage where the tiniest pre-bunches are just about to start coming into flower. For every future individual grape there is a flower. Hail is nothing but a bully, smashing anything as tender as a grape bud to smithereens. No flowers, no grapes. I haven't been up to the vineyards to check yet, but I'm uncharacteristically pessimistic after the loss of last year's crop to hail the night before the harvest.

I'll let you know. Of course the sun is shining again now, as if nothing ever happened. Harrumph.

The forecast has been dreadful for the past few days, but the heavy rains just haven't come - yet. So this week we have taken up 450 vines that were on a slope too steep to manage. We're wimps really, the old boy who used to own our vines did it all by himself with the aid of a mule. Having nearly lost Queenie the Quad on an escarpment we gave up on the Cinsault vines at the top of the amphitheatre. So they've been pulled up.

But today was bright, hot and sunny so, albeit too late in the Spring, I planted two plum trees, one more cherry and three peaches. If the forecast rains come the trees will get a decent start. If it just turns hot I may lose them, but they were cheap so I'm giving them a whirl.

Around here they say if you can see snow on the Pyrrenees it's going to rain within three days. This photo was taken this morning at Rochelongue by my good friend Chris Kemp. Looks like the trees may get their chance.

 

 

Wow, it seems ages since I last wrote a post. Meanwhile Ali's been to Western Australia to see her family - and I took the opportunity to organise a couple of surprises for her return. We have a friend who says I move the house three inches when Ali's away, but this time I managed 4 metres. Yep, the bridge between the convent and the garden has finally been constructed, some three years after we first thought about it. It is just wonderful to be able to walk from our apartment straight to the garden. We're both thrilled. Huge thanks to the Welder-Beast and Teddy.

 

 

The second surprise has been installed in the vineyard and is a real treat. Whenever we have a bit of time during the closed season Ali and I camp in the mazet (Chateau Malaudos ). But, to be frank, sleeping on a stone slab has quickly lost its appeal. So I've bought an ancient caravan to keep hidden in amongst the olive trees. She's 25 years old - at least - and we've painted her the colour of the surrounding foliage and soil. So now she's called Olive. Best of all she has comfortable beds and a gas cooker. I love having the open fire beside the mazet, but it's a fag to light a big fire when all you need is a quick coffee whilst working on the vines.

There's nothing better than breakfast in the middle of a vineyard in the warm sunshine of a March morning. Can you smell the bacon?

 

 

 

 

On Thursday we returned home to Le Couvent, the best B&B in the Languedoc (shameless plug), to find vast bag full of wild asparagus on the doorstep. Our kind neighbours over the road had been out foraging and had left them for us as a thanks for some eggs we'd left on their doorstep. Oooh, they are sooo delicious. We had lots gently steamed with a smoked salmon bake the other evening and I made a couple of Wild Asparagus and Cheddar quiches for the freezer - using our hens' wonderful eggs of course.

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking has been made even more pleasurable this week as the lovely Teddy made me a new chopping board.

 

 

 

 

I'm sure he'd make you one too if you like. Just let me know what size and I'll ask him.

In the evenings we can now hear the Scops Owl doing its impression of a car alarm and I've seen my first Hoopoe of the season. Ali and I both have agricultural tans from pottering about in the vineyard kitchen garden and the temperature hovers around 21 during the day. So Spring has definitely sprung.