Two days for me on the 25th and 26th and contrasting ones too which makes life interesting. On Tuesday the sorting table was just inside the cellar because Jeff had decided to use the Syrah from the young plantation at La Garrigue to make a whole bunch, carbonic maceration wine. Therefore, rather than the grapes go through the destemmer they are sent directly into the tank after being sorted. Easier to use the old sorting table right next to the top of the tank than to send the bunches on a journey.

La Garrigue is the vineyard where the Older Syrah vines can go to make my favourite wine, La Vigne Haute but Jeff bought a neighbouring parcel a few years and planted some more Syrah. This plantation is now producing the fruit we used today, pictured here as Flora and Gils were pruning it.

The fruit was actually very good for young vine produce with some juicy bunches heading directly to the tank where they will ferment slowly in bunches before the juice is run off the skins, pulp and pips. Hopefully this will produce a light, fresh and fruity wine to be used as Jeff sees fit. Leaves and, unfortunately, earwigs were the main items to be disposed of before the bunches reached their destination. I hate earwigs!

Wednesday brought a return to the outdoors for sorting. The interesting thing about the day was the harvesting of the new wave of white grapes. In recent years Jeff recognised the change in climate and moved a significant proportion of production to white grapes. Whereas when I first visited around 90% of grapes were red now it about 65%. And, significantly, there has been a move to Spanish white grape varieties. The reasoning is straightforward, the ability of such grapes to cope with seemingly ever increasing temperatures.

The first such variety I really noticed was Xarel-lo. Planted 5 or 6 years ago Xarel-lo has been making a cuvée called Sauve Qui Pleut, punning on the cry for those facing shipwreck, sauve qui peut. Xarel-lo is improving in quality every year, producing a fresh, fruity wine with distinct saline notes. The Xarel-lo grapes were in stunningly good shape when harvested on Wednesday.

A new plantation in Peilhan 3 years ago saw the planting of more Spanish varieties, namely Parellada and Malvasia de Sitges. The fresh tasting Parellada was pressed directly on the morning whilst the Malvasia was blended with Muscat because of its aromatic qualities.

It was good to welcome two new visitors to the cellars. Aaron works for Jeff’s UK importer Gergovie Wines and was here for a few days. Experienced from wineries in Sussex he worked hard and was a cheerful and welcome recruit. Connor works for Discovery Wines in New York and met Jeff when he did a tour of NYC last year. He has just arrived but is already throwing himself full into harvest. Good to welcome back Louis and his partner Caroline too. Louis worked with Jeff for a long stretch around covid time and he’s always good to talk to as well as being another hard working contributor to harvest.

Two long days but well worth it, some good fruit, indeed exceptional in the case of the Xarel-lo makes all the hard work worthwhile. Meanwhile Flora has been busy not just in the cellars but in producing social media content. Even I can’t spoil these, well not entirely.

Finally, for those animal lovers out there. Our real ‘patron’ and supervisor is still here keeping his eye on things. And by sorting carefully look what we rescued from going into tank with the Xarel-lo.