La Legue Vineyard


Diary August to October March to July February Join List	February 2004 Author: Jack Well Iain is now well and truly settled in; seems like he has always been here. Granddad is still with us and we continued the search for the perfect house for him. A local agent took us to look at two houses, one in a small hamlet not far from Duras and one in Duras itself. The moment we saw the first house it was obvious that it was not at all suitable - totally overpriced and having a complete lack of character, not to mention the huge amount of work required. However the second was more interesting, so interesting in fact that he considered putting in an offer immediately. Unfortunately, when I phoned the agent the next day, it had already been sold. Granddad was extremely disappointed but all was not lost. The very first house we had looked at was in our local village, St Sernin, just around the corner from the place where Rebecca goes before and after school and conveniently close to the local bar. We had all liked the house when we first looked at it but it seemed expensive so we wanted to see what else was on offer. Granddad got home and thought about what he had seen. He decided that if the price was right the house would be ideal for him, so on the 23rd he made an offer, went through the mandatory period of negotiation and finally agreed a very good price. So it seems we are about to be near neighbours! He returned on the last day of the month with Janet and his deposit in hand for a week’s visit and to sign the ‘sous-seign’, the contract that is drawn up between buyer and seller at the beginning of a house purchase process (the buying process in France is pretty drawn out but it I think it is better than that in England, the equivalent of our exchange of contracts happens at the very start of the process and is binding on both parties). A few days into February and Iain finished building the chemical store, with the aid of a significant amount of paternal advice and guidance ([Iain] but remarkably little hands-on assistance!), and was pretty chuffed with it. We can now store all our chemicals safely under lock and key. So, the first job ticked on what is a very long and seemingly never-ending list. The list this month included replacing the broken piquets, pruning all the fruit trees and sorting out the abominable ‘smell’ that seemingly originates in our cellar. Now that the vines have been pruned and the vineyard has been cleared of all the prunings the job of replacing the broken piquets (posts) began. We ordered 500 piquets and 2,000 marquants (small posts to support young vines). These are all delivered on a huge lorry that dumps the lot at the back of our hangar. And the work begins. The first task is to place new piquets where they need to be planted and gather up the old ones. Each piquet is pretty heavy and it takes some time to load sixteen or so into the trailer of the quad-bike. They are then driven around the vineyard where they are laid out and the old ones collected. This is both a tiring and time consuming job, but good exercise! Iain is turning into a regular muscle man and I think it even did Granddad some good! It took several days to finish laying out all the new piquets and the marquants (although they didn’t work all day every day as it was too tiring and there were plenty of other things that needed to be done at the same time) but eventually they finished. The pile of new piquets had been exchanged for a slightly smaller pile of old ones that Iain, with the kind help of Jose, cut up into logs for firewood. We also have a horrifyingly large pile of dead vines that we have collected from the vineyard. Jose was busy earlier in the year with the chainsaw and handsaw cutting down the dead vines and chopping bits out of vines to reshape them. It took a couple of days just to collect them all. In fact Beck and Iain spent a whole day together doing just that. It seems Beck is beginning to enjoy helping in the vineyard, especially when it involves using the quad bike. Once collected they were then dumped for me to pile up as neatly as I could. back to top Unable to put the new piquets in until we could borrow a tractor with a post-basher on it Iain moved on to the next job, pruning the fruit trees. This is equally challenging - we have about 8 apple trees, a nectarine, a fig, 6 cherry trees, 2 peach trees and 6 pear trees (no partridge though). The apple trees have not been kept in trim and therefore required major surgery which involved Iain climbing into the tree and sawing off the most offensive boughs. The job stretched over most of the month as there are always other more important things to do. We thought that burning the prunings on a bonfire would be a good idea but it took us so long to burn the first lot [Iain: but having a huge bonfire was actually quite fun] that we put the rest into the trailer to be taken to the local tip, whilst keeping best bits of wood for our log store, which is now big enough to keep a third-world country in fuel for a year. Manoeuvring the trailer is a nightmare but fortunately the man at the tip is very helpful and each time helped me reverse the pick up and trailer so that I could turn round (pretty embarrassing really!). The trees are now in much better shape, ‘champagne glass’ style as advised by Granddad [Iain: although granddad’s first comment on seeing them was along the lines of ‘that’s not right, you should have made them look like champagne glasses’, hmmm]. We will definitely have less fruit this year but it should be better quality. Big decision. We have finally taken the plunge and ordered a tractor. But not before reviewing our options for the six hundredth time. Jose has been working hard on this for us and introduced us to a salesman from the Case tractor showroom. We spent an entire afternoon talking to him at our house (this is a common theme here, arrange any meeting at your place for after 2pm (of course) and you can bank on not getting anything else done for the rest of the day). It seems Jose told him not only that we need a tractor and all its associated hardware but also everything for our cuverie. We discuss lots of options and to his credit he comes up with some interesting ideas. Just to be sure before we make our decision I visit our most local tractor dealership to find out how much a Fendt would cost. Spookily, and in spite of my visit being off the cuff, they were expecting me – actually Jose had beaten me to it and mentioned that I’d probably pay a visit! Fendt, though, is off our list, top quality, but just too pricey. So…finally we decided to buy the Landini proposed by the guy from Bonny, who has been trying to sell us a tractor for many months now. We called him up, asked him to call round and, after a bit of negotiation on the price finally placed the order with him. As a condition of the purchase Iain managed to negotiate the loan of an old tractor while we waited for our new tractor to be delivered so we could get on with replacing the piquets. Apart from getting to learn how to control it, a tractor is pretty much useless on its own so we order a broyeur for mowing between the vines along with a sprayer. Although the time is rapidly approaching when we need to control the weeds between the vines, we are still uncertain about the best approach (more about this in March’s diary) so we defer the decision and steel ourselves for focussed investigation and more soul-searching. We also ordered an industrial strength Karcher pressure washer for cleaning all our equipment; yet another essential piece of equipment. The list is never ending! The borrowed tractor arrives on the 11th at 6.30 pm. It was like something out of the dark ages but we were assured that everything still worked properly. Bonny had made a couple of changes to enable us to attach the post basher and the next morning Jose zipped off with the tractor off to collect the machine that we were borrowing from someone he knows, not sure who (Jose seems to have an endless list of useful contacts, goodness knows how many favour ‘debts’ we’ve incurred). He returns several hours later somewhat less than happy, having had to first remove the piquet basher from another tractor before attaching it to ours, all on his own! Then he, Louis and Iain spend several more hours trying to get it to work. I’m not sure what was wrong exactly [Iain: I am. The bloody thing was ancient and configured for a much slimmer tractor than the tractor that we borrowed. Adjusting it for our tractor was nearly impossible. I did get worried when Jose and Louis firmly ‘encouraged’ it with the aid of our heaviest lump-hammer but it did the job in the end], but after a lot of bashing, pushing and shoving, more bashing and the added help of the Bonny salesman who happened to call by, by 5pm the tractor and post basher are finally ready for action, and off they go. Iain drove the tractor and controled the piquet basher, whilst Jose held the piquets in place and Louis followed along behind to attach the wires to the new posts. From a distance cries of ‘encore, encore’ over and over again can be heard as Jose instructed Iain to keep on bashing the post in further. All the posts must end up at the same height otherwise the top wire will not be level. They manage to get 50 posts in within an hour and a half, finished off by a well earned ‘petit blanc’ on the patio! Friday 13th proved an unlucky day for Jose, a piece of wood flew off one the piquets as it was being bashed and hit him in the mouth, causing two of his teeth to come loose. In some pain he took himself off to the dentist who determined that he needed painkillers, that he should only eat soft food for a week and that he would need to have a pin put in to hold one of his teeth in place. He returned later, unruffled, and carried on working, this time wearing a facemask for protection. They carry on working all day and finally finish the job off on Saturday morning. back to top As well as the new piquets we also had 2,000 young merlot vines staked up; quite a task in itself, taking a week to complete. We are doing this to make sure that the vines (and hence grape bunches) are as evenly spaced as possible, at the moment the vines are free to bend and many are growing closer to their neighbours resulting in gaps and overlaps. Jose and Louis hammered the stakes into place one by one and Evelyn and Monique then tied the vines to the stakes with the aid of some pieces of stretchy Lycra. My big contribution was to cut up the Lycra (my hand still providing an excuse!). The Lycra comes in big reels and has to be cut up into small pieces each about 8 inches long. Granddad and I cunningly devised a ‘Heath Robinson’ device using an empty single wine bottle box to speed the job up but it still took a morning to cut enough up. After all this, with the buds on the vines beginning to swell and in some cases threaten to burst, the job of tying down began in earnest. Evelyn and Monique spent many days out in the vineyard attaching the canes to the fruiting wires. Wherever possible we have asked that the canes be attached to the lower fruiting wire to make them as flat as possible. This will help ensure that the new growth is as evenly spread out as possible and help to reduce the incidence of fungal infection. Tying down was all finished on the 25th. Whilst tying down, the girls had to put up with the smell of the fumier (manure) that we have had spread all over the vineyard. After some discussion with the Technician at Terres de Sud we decided to order 11 tonnes of organic fumier made up mostly of guano and rotted beetroot foliage! It comes in compressed pellet form and was delivered in a huge yellow hopper that was deposited at the back behind the hangar. Jose, once again using his contacts, borrowed a spreader for us and spent a day and a half filling it up and driving up and down the rows spreading it. He started on the 18th and finished on the 19th at lunchtime in the midst of a hailstorm. Bearing in mind he was using our borrowed tractor which has no cabin this was once again an endurance test for him. But he never complains and was determined to finish the job despite the weather. Surprisingly the smell was not too bad. As far as fertiliser goes this is all we are doing this year. The soil analysis that we had done showed that other than a lack of humus and nitrogen the soil is in very good condition. The plan is to begin to work the soil between the rows in April, after the manure has made an impact – apparently Jose has a friend with exactly the right equipment!! I also discussed our ’phytosanitaire’ requirements with Terres du Sud, that is, to determine the products we will need to use on the vines this year to combat the various fungal and insect problems that can arise. We are very keen to be as kind to the vines as possible and want to minimise use of any products and where essential use those that are the least harmful. Getting to grips with the huge range of products that are available is yet another challenge, not to mention the sneaky feeling that the analyst is having a bit of a laugh at us behind our backs. Our borrowed tractor has proved to be very useful. As well as enabling us to start the work in the vineyard, it has also been used to help two vehicles that were stuck in the mud! The first was the lorry that came to collect the empty fumier hopper - after several torrential downpours the mud was too much for the lorry and it got stuck in the mud at the back of the hangar. So Iain was called in to help and successfully towed the umpteen ton lorry out. A few days later a man and his dog came wandering up the vineyard and asked Iain if he could tow his van out of the field next door. It seemed he had driven his van over the field to his patch of woodland where he was busily sawing wood up all day. When he came to go home his van was stuck, the icy ground having thawed into liquid. So, off to the rescue once more, this time with Beck and Grace in tow to help. He was very grateful and the next morning turned up at our door with a bottle of his home made prune eau de vie, a sort of flavoured fire water – we still have some and anyone who would like to give it a try is more than welcome to drop in! back to top Our new tractor arrived on the 26th! At last. Mind you we couldn’t do much with it as none of the attachments had been delivered. We were able to admire it, play with it and generally be pleased with ourselves. Only one small problem, the accelerator pedal is so close to the foot brake that your foot gets stuck under the brake pedal making it near impossible to lift your foot off the accelerator. The Bonny salesman arrived later that afternoon to give us the low-down on the tractor and its functions. He agreed this was a problem and that a modification was required. It seemed that the design had been changed and this was the first of the new style tractor they had had delivered. But overall we were more than happy with our purchase. Jose continues to be invaluable. He often calls round for a chat and a ‘petit blanc’. Always very chatty, always looking out for us, often has news of houses for sale, vines for sale, ideas for improving the vineyard, suggestions for selling our wine, and sometimes calls round in a panic saying that we must must do this or that right now or the vineyard will fall apart!. He is very patient with us and always entertaining and easy to talk to. We also keep in close contact with Jonathon (who we met on our very first expedition to buy a tractor) who has had a lot of experience making wine and has been very helpful in steering our thoughts about that aspect of our adventure. Beck continues to enjoy school, despite the ongoing problems with Fleur and Elise. They have been practicing for a sports afternoon at school. I am not sure what the format is exactly but Beck’s part in it is to run 2 kilometres in a set standard time for her. They have been practicing two or three times a week at school, measuring their times and then trying to repeat the distance in the same time. When it came to the event itself they were competing against a number of other schools. Ten points were awarded if you managed to run the two kilometres in your prescribed time, within ten seconds of it I think, less points being awarded if you fell outside the limits. Beck was delighted to achieve her time and get the full ten points for her school. However it doesn’t sound as if her school was the victor as she didn’t seem to know who won (unusual for Rebecca hence my suspicion that it wasn’t her school). Never mind, she enjoyed taking part and that’s what counts. Beck and Grace continue to be good friends and spend quite a bit of time together, often on a Wednesday when there is no school and at the weekends. Beck spent a weekend at Grace’s at the beginning of the month, leaving us feeling somewhat lost surprisingly. You always think it would be great to have some time to yourself but when it does finally happen it’s a bit of a shock. I suppose we should have gone out but instead we decided to stay home and watch the second part of the Lord of the Rings. We had been trying to watch if for a while but we never seemed to find the time…so that was our treat for that weekend. Beck and Grace are still taking their riding lessons on Saturday mornings in St Foy. We are very pleased with the stable and Beck is learning rapidly. They are encouraged to groom the ponies after the lesson as well which is very good. Beck has also been to play at Fleur’s house. We quite unexpectedly got a call from Valerie asking if Beck would like to go round. Bearing in mind that she and Fleur have not been getting on this was quite a shock, to say the least. We hoped it might mean they were friends again but sadly not so. The very next week Beck did not get invited to Fleur’s birthday party and have not played outside of school since; although it seems they are friends from time to time. So Beck unfortunately spends most of her time out of school speaking English. Except for one Sunday when our neighbour, Francoise, who teaches Beck French once a week, asked Beck to go round for Sunday lunch and to play with her son Julian, which was a welcome treat for Beck (and us!). Later in the month Beck’s best friend from her school in Ryarsh, Phoebe, came with her mum for a long weekend. We hadn’t told Beck that she was coming and I drove her all the way to the airport and stood waiting for them to arrive. She was so surprised she was unable to talk to her for about half an hour. They had a great weekend together. Iain and I took advantage of their visit and took some time off to take them out a bit, visiting St Foy market, Bergerac and Chateau Monbazillac. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too good and we weren’t able to be outside as much as we would have liked. We had managed to have our first barbeque of the year on the 7th but by the 20th, when they arrived, the weather had cooled right down. In fact the following Friday it snowed. Snow is almost unknown around here. It was forecast by the Meteo but they are generally pretty unreliable so we dismissed it. Even when we got up and saw the first flakes of snow falling we thought it would all be over in a flash. However I decided that Iain should take Beck to school as it wasn’t looking too good outside. When he got back he said it was pretty treacherous outside already. And then it really started to snow. Within an hour several inches of snow had fallen. Worried about Beck at school I called them to find that they were in the process of asking all parents to collect their children. So off Iain went again, this time finding it really hazardous even with four-wheel drive. Back home it wasn’t long before they were outside building a snowman and having a snowball fight before taking a walk with the camera to admire the radically different scenery and capture the moment. The snow melted within twenty four hours but the snowman lasted for several days as it continued to be cold most of the following week. There is little news with regard to the winery. We continue to wait for planning permission. From time to time we try and chase up progress but are generally greeted with comments such ‘C’est la France’ or ‘C’est l’administration’. The architect continues to be optimistic that we will have our wine making facility up and running before the 2004 harvest. For now all we can do is hope and pray. I have paid visits to the three major banks in Duras this month to discuss the possibility of a loan towards the cost of the project. Interesting to experience the different attitudes of each bank. One quizzed me endlessly about absolutely everything, and wanted photocopies of absolutely everything. However they didn’t visit us at the vineyard. The other two banks both arranged visits to us and brought with them their ‘specialists’ in agricultural finance. Of these two one arranged a visit within the following week, whereas the other has taken over a month to make the visit. Each bank has come up with different options, different issues and concerns so from that point of view it has been an education. The question of a loan, for what and from who is ongoing. I have now completed my introduction to wine tasting course. I fear that more work will be required on my part if I am to be better able at discerning the various facets of a wine. I have to say that the course went on for rather longer than I thought was necessary, but this was certainly partly due to the constant need for French people to express everything they want to say in at least three different ways. Iain only ever came to one of the five sessions; he found the French too challenging and the presentation of the subject uninteresting. Oh well. One of the best aspects of the course for me, apart from the immersion in the French language, was the opportunity to taste many of the local Cotes de Duras wines. Iain has decided that work on replacing the pool terracing must be planned so we have been out looking for some new tiles. We found them in Point.P (bit like a builders merchants crossed with Homebase) and placed our order for them. Delivery was promised within a few days but in the event it took about a month before the tiles, the sand, the cement, were all delivered. Although Iain has been frustrated at not being able to start this he has not needless to say been idle as there is always something else to do. When sitting sipping a ‘petit blanc’ with Jose one evening and discussing the pool terracing Jose advised us that we would need a ‘dame’ for the terrace! What? After pulling ourselves together we learn that it is not someone you hire to make the poolside look pretty but rather a ‘whacker’ machine for compressing the base of the terracing! We also spent some time contemplating redoing the kitchen but have finally concluded that we really shouldn’t be spending the money on it right now when there is so much else to buy. In fact the house in general is just going to have to wait unless the jobs we do can be undertaken pretty quickly/cheaply. However we are not totally without income as our second part payment for the 2003 harvest arrived at the end of the month. A small consolation. And Iain has started to build the fitments for our wardrobe in the room that one day will be our bedroom. His handyman skills are improving rapidly. And last but by no means least is the smell……Iain and Granddad spent many many hours of contemplation, digging, lifting manhole covers and generally pacing around sniffing at anything that could possibly be a source to try to get to the bottom of the abominable smell that seems to originate in the cellar. One of the funniest moments of the month was when I went down to the cellar to find them both sniffing the end of a drainpipe – to no effect I might add. Anyway, remarkably it was the sniffing that identified the source – an overflow pipe in the floor – had to pick Iain off the floor when he put he sniffed that one. This apparently leads to the ditch outside our property as does the outflow from our septic tank (this is not right, the tank should drain into a kind of soakaway, but that’s another story) which is, to put it politely, a little pongy. Iain’s final analysis was that a pressure difference caused the smell to be drawn into the house, so he took the slightly risky approach of sealing the overflow pipe and bingo, no smell. If only we’d listened when Beck mentioned the smell in the ditch a couple of weeks earlier. We now know a lot more about our waste water systems but we still need to sort out the root cause of the problem. back to top	Get our diary every month Completely free Updates by email Click to join list

February 2004

Author: Jack

Well Iain is now well and truly settled in; seems like he has always been here. Granddad is still with us and we continued the search for the perfect house for him. A local agent took us to look at two houses, one in a small hamlet not far from Duras and one in Duras itself. The moment we saw the first house it was obvious that it was not at all suitable - totally overpriced and having a complete lack of character, not to mention the huge amount of work required. However the second was more interesting, so interesting in fact that he considered putting in an offer immediately. Unfortunately, when I phoned the agent the next day, it had already been sold. Granddad was extremely disappointed but all was not lost. The very first house we had looked at was in our local village, St Sernin, just around the corner from the place where Rebecca goes before and after school and conveniently close to the local bar. We had all liked the house when we first looked at it but it seemed expensive so we wanted to see what else was on offer. Granddad got home and thought about what he had seen. He decided that if the price was right the house would be ideal for him, so on the 23rd he made an offer, went through the mandatory period of negotiation and finally agreed a very good price. So it seems we are about to be near neighbours! He returned on the last day of the month with Janet and his deposit in hand for a week’s visit and to sign the ‘sous-seign’, the contract that is drawn up between buyer and seller at the beginning of a house purchase process (the buying process in France is pretty drawn out but it I think it is better than that in England, the equivalent of our exchange of contracts happens at the very start of the process and is binding on both parties).

A few days into February and Iain finished building the chemical store, with the aid of a significant amount of paternal advice and guidance ([Iain] but remarkably little hands-on assistance!), and was pretty chuffed with it. We can now store all our chemicals safely under lock and key. So, the first job ticked on what is a very long and seemingly never-ending list. The list this month included replacing the broken piquets, pruning all the fruit trees and sorting out the abominable ‘smell’ that seemingly originates in our cellar.

Now that the vines have been pruned and the vineyard has been cleared of all the prunings the job of replacing the broken piquets (posts) began. We ordered 500 piquets and 2,000 marquants (small posts to support young vines). These are all delivered on a huge lorry that dumps the lot at the back of our hangar. And the work begins. The first task is to place new piquets where they need to be planted and gather up the old ones. Each piquet is pretty heavy and it takes some time to load sixteen or so into the trailer of the quad-bike. They are then driven around the vineyard where they are laid out and the old ones collected. This is both a tiring and time consuming job, but good exercise! Iain is turning into a regular muscle man and I think it even did Granddad some good! It took several days to finish laying out all the new piquets and the marquants (although they didn’t work all day every day as it was too tiring and there were plenty of other things that needed to be done at the same time) but eventually they finished. The pile of new piquets had been exchanged for a slightly smaller pile of old ones that Iain, with the kind help of Jose, cut up into logs for firewood. We also have a horrifyingly large pile of dead vines that we have collected from the vineyard. Jose was busy earlier in the year with the chainsaw and handsaw cutting down the dead vines and chopping bits out of vines to reshape them. It took a couple of days just to collect them all. In fact Beck and Iain spent a whole day together doing just that. It seems Beck is beginning to enjoy helping in the vineyard, especially when it involves using the quad bike. Once collected they were then dumped for me to pile up as neatly as I could.

Unable to put the new piquets in until we could borrow a tractor with a post-basher on it Iain moved on to the next job, pruning the fruit trees. This is equally challenging - we have about 8 apple trees, a nectarine, a fig, 6 cherry trees, 2 peach trees and 6 pear trees (no partridge though). The apple trees have not been kept in trim and therefore required major surgery which involved Iain climbing into the tree and sawing off the most offensive boughs. The job stretched over most of the month as there are always other more important things to do. We thought that burning the prunings on a bonfire would be a good idea but it took us so long to burn the first lot [Iain: but having a huge bonfire was actually quite fun] that we put the rest into the trailer to be taken to the local tip, whilst keeping best bits of wood for our log store, which is now big enough to keep a third-world country in fuel for a year. Manoeuvring the trailer is a nightmare but fortunately the man at the tip is very helpful and each time helped me reverse the pick up and trailer so that I could turn round (pretty embarrassing really!). The trees are now in much better shape, ‘champagne glass’ style as advised by Granddad [Iain: although granddad’s first comment on seeing them was along the lines of ‘that’s not right, you should have made them look like champagne glasses’, hmmm]. We will definitely have less fruit this year but it should be better quality.

Big decision. We have finally taken the plunge and ordered a tractor. But not before reviewing our options for the six hundredth time. Jose has been working hard on this for us and introduced us to a salesman from the Case tractor showroom. We spent an entire afternoon talking to him at our house (this is a common theme here, arrange any meeting at your place for after 2pm (of course) and you can bank on not getting anything else done for the rest of the day). It seems Jose told him not only that we need a tractor and all its associated hardware but also everything for our cuverie. We discuss lots of options and to his credit he comes up with some interesting ideas. Just to be sure before we make our decision I visit our most local tractor dealership to find out how much a Fendt would cost. Spookily, and in spite of my visit being off the cuff, they were expecting me – actually Jose had beaten me to it and mentioned that I’d probably pay a visit! Fendt, though, is off our list, top quality, but just too pricey. So…finally we decided to buy the Landini proposed by the guy from Bonny, who has been trying to sell us a tractor for many months now. We called him up, asked him to call round and, after a bit of negotiation on the price finally placed the order with him. As a condition of the purchase Iain managed to negotiate the loan of an old tractor while we waited for our new tractor to be delivered so we could get on with replacing the piquets. Apart from getting to learn how to control it, a tractor is pretty much useless on its own so we order a broyeur for mowing between the vines along with a sprayer. Although the time is rapidly approaching when we need to control the weeds between the vines, we are still uncertain about the best approach (more about this in March’s diary) so we defer the decision and steel ourselves for focussed investigation and more soul-searching. We also ordered an industrial strength Karcher pressure washer for cleaning all our equipment; yet another essential piece of equipment. The list is never ending!

The borrowed tractor arrives on the 11th at 6.30 pm. It was like something out of the dark ages but we were assured that everything still worked properly. Bonny had made a couple of changes to enable us to attach the post basher and the next morning Jose zipped off with the tractor off to collect the machine that we were borrowing from someone he knows, not sure who (Jose seems to have an endless list of useful contacts, goodness knows how many favour ‘debts’ we’ve incurred). He returns several hours later somewhat less than happy, having had to first remove the piquet basher from another tractor before attaching it to ours, all on his own! Then he, Louis and Iain spend several more hours trying to get it to work. I’m not sure what was wrong exactly [Iain: I am. The bloody thing was ancient and configured for a much slimmer tractor than the tractor that we borrowed. Adjusting it for our tractor was nearly impossible. I did get worried when Jose and Louis firmly ‘encouraged’ it with the aid of our heaviest lump-hammer but it did the job in the end], but after a lot of bashing, pushing and shoving, more bashing and the added help of the Bonny salesman who happened to call by, by 5pm the tractor and post basher are finally ready for action, and off they go. Iain drove the tractor and controled the piquet basher, whilst Jose held the piquets in place and Louis followed along behind to attach the wires to the new posts. From a distance cries of ‘encore, encore’ over and over again can be heard as Jose instructed Iain to keep on bashing the post in further. All the posts must end up at the same height otherwise the top wire will not be level. They manage to get 50 posts in within an hour and a half, finished off by a well earned ‘petit blanc’ on the patio! Friday 13th proved an unlucky day for Jose, a piece of wood flew off one the piquets as it was being bashed and hit him in the mouth, causing two of his teeth to come loose. In some pain he took himself off to the dentist who determined that he needed painkillers, that he should only eat soft food for a week and that he would need to have a pin put in to hold one of his teeth in place. He returned later, unruffled, and carried on working, this time wearing a facemask for protection. They carry on working all day and finally finish the job off on Saturday morning.

As well as the new piquets we also had 2,000 young merlot vines staked up; quite a task in itself, taking a week to complete. We are doing this to make sure that the vines (and hence grape bunches) are as evenly spaced as possible, at the moment the vines are free to bend and many are growing closer to their neighbours resulting in gaps and overlaps. Jose and Louis hammered the stakes into place one by one and Evelyn and Monique then tied the vines to the stakes with the aid of some pieces of stretchy Lycra. My big contribution was to cut up the Lycra (my hand still providing an excuse!). The Lycra comes in big reels and has to be cut up into small pieces each about 8 inches long. Granddad and I cunningly devised a ‘Heath Robinson’ device using an empty single wine bottle box to speed the job up but it still took a morning to cut enough up.

After all this, with the buds on the vines beginning to swell and in some cases threaten to burst, the job of tying down began in earnest. Evelyn and Monique spent many days out in the vineyard attaching the canes to the fruiting wires. Wherever possible we have asked that the canes be attached to the lower fruiting wire to make them as flat as possible. This will help ensure that the new growth is as evenly spread out as possible and help to reduce the incidence of fungal infection. Tying down was all finished on the 25th.

Whilst tying down, the girls had to put up with the smell of the fumier (manure) that we have had spread all over the vineyard. After some discussion with the Technician at Terres de Sud we decided to order 11 tonnes of organic fumier made up mostly of guano and rotted beetroot foliage! It comes in compressed pellet form and was delivered in a huge yellow hopper that was deposited at the back behind the hangar. Jose, once again using his contacts, borrowed a spreader for us and spent a day and a half filling it up and driving up and down the rows spreading it. He started on the 18th and finished on the 19th at lunchtime in the midst of a hailstorm. Bearing in mind he was using our borrowed tractor which has no cabin this was once again an endurance test for him. But he never complains and was determined to finish the job despite the weather. Surprisingly the smell was not too bad. As far as fertiliser goes this is all we are doing this year. The soil analysis that we had done showed that other than a lack of humus and nitrogen the soil is in very good condition. The plan is to begin to work the soil between the rows in April, after the manure has made an impact – apparently Jose has a friend with exactly the right equipment!!

I also discussed our ’phytosanitaire’ requirements with Terres du Sud, that is, to determine the products we will need to use on the vines this year to combat the various fungal and insect problems that can arise. We are very keen to be as kind to the vines as possible and want to minimise use of any products and where essential use those that are the least harmful. Getting to grips with the huge range of products that are available is yet another challenge, not to mention the sneaky feeling that the analyst is having a bit of a laugh at us behind our backs.

Our borrowed tractor has proved to be very useful. As well as enabling us to start the work in the vineyard, it has also been used to help two vehicles that were stuck in the mud! The first was the lorry that came to collect the empty fumier hopper - after several torrential downpours the mud was too much for the lorry and it got stuck in the mud at the back of the hangar. So Iain was called in to help and successfully towed the umpteen ton lorry out. A few days later a man and his dog came wandering up the vineyard and asked Iain if he could tow his van out of the field next door. It seemed he had driven his van over the field to his patch of woodland where he was busily sawing wood up all day. When he came to go home his van was stuck, the icy ground having thawed into liquid. So, off to the rescue once more, this time with Beck and Grace in tow to help. He was very grateful and the next morning turned up at our door with a bottle of his home made prune eau de vie, a sort of flavoured fire water – we still have some and anyone who would like to give it a try is more than welcome to drop in!

Our new tractor arrived on the 26th! At last. Mind you we couldn’t do much with it as none of the attachments had been delivered. We were able to admire it, play with it and generally be pleased with ourselves. Only one small problem, the accelerator pedal is so close to the foot brake that your foot gets stuck under the brake pedal making it near impossible to lift your foot off the accelerator. The Bonny salesman arrived later that afternoon to give us the low-down on the tractor and its functions. He agreed this was a problem and that a modification was required. It seemed that the design had been changed and this was the first of the new style tractor they had had delivered. But overall we were more than happy with our purchase.

Jose continues to be invaluable. He often calls round for a chat and a ‘petit blanc’. Always very chatty, always looking out for us, often has news of houses for sale, vines for sale, ideas for improving the vineyard, suggestions for selling our wine, and sometimes calls round in a panic saying that we must must do this or that right now or the vineyard will fall apart!. He is very patient with us and always entertaining and easy to talk to. We also keep in close contact with Jonathon (who we met on our very first expedition to buy a tractor) who has had a lot of experience making wine and has been very helpful in steering our thoughts about that aspect of our adventure.

Beck continues to enjoy school, despite the ongoing problems with Fleur and Elise. They have been practicing for a sports afternoon at school. I am not sure what the format is exactly but Beck’s part in it is to run 2 kilometres in a set standard time for her. They have been practicing two or three times a week at school, measuring their times and then trying to repeat the distance in the same time. When it came to the event itself they were competing against a number of other schools. Ten points were awarded if you managed to run the two kilometres in your prescribed time, within ten seconds of it I think, less points being awarded if you fell outside the limits. Beck was delighted to achieve her time and get the full ten points for her school. However it doesn’t sound as if her school was the victor as she didn’t seem to know who won (unusual for Rebecca hence my suspicion that it wasn’t her school). Never mind, she enjoyed taking part and that’s what counts.

Beck and Grace continue to be good friends and spend quite a bit of time together, often on a Wednesday when there is no school and at the weekends. Beck spent a weekend at Grace’s at the beginning of the month, leaving us feeling somewhat lost surprisingly. You always think it would be great to have some time to yourself but when it does finally happen it’s a bit of a shock. I suppose we should have gone out but instead we decided to stay home and watch the second part of the Lord of the Rings. We had been trying to watch if for a while but we never seemed to find the time…so that was our treat for that weekend. Beck and Grace are still taking their riding lessons on Saturday mornings in St Foy. We are very pleased with the stable and Beck is learning rapidly. They are encouraged to groom the ponies after the lesson as well which is very good. Beck has also been to play at Fleur’s house. We quite unexpectedly got a call from Valerie asking if Beck would like to go round. Bearing in mind that she and Fleur have not been getting on this was quite a shock, to say the least. We hoped it might mean they were friends again but sadly not so. The very next week Beck did not get invited to Fleur’s birthday party and have not played outside of school since; although it seems they are friends from time to time. So Beck unfortunately spends most of her time out of school speaking English. Except for one Sunday when our neighbour, Francoise, who teaches Beck French once a week, asked Beck to go round for Sunday lunch and to play with her son Julian, which was a welcome treat for Beck (and us!). Later in the month Beck’s best friend from her school in Ryarsh, Phoebe, came with her mum for a long weekend. We hadn’t told Beck that she was coming and I drove her all the way to the airport and stood waiting for them to arrive. She was so surprised she was unable to talk to her for about half an hour. They had a great weekend together. Iain and I took advantage of their visit and took some time off to take them out a bit, visiting St Foy market, Bergerac and Chateau Monbazillac. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too good and we weren’t able to be outside as much as we would have liked. We had managed to have our first barbeque of the year on the 7th but by the 20th, when they arrived, the weather had cooled right down. In fact the following Friday it snowed.

Snow is almost unknown around here. It was forecast by the Meteo but they are generally pretty unreliable so we dismissed it. Even when we got up and saw the first flakes of snow falling we thought it would all be over in a flash. However I decided that Iain should take Beck to school as it wasn’t looking too good outside. When he got back he said it was pretty treacherous outside already. And then it really started to snow. Within an hour several inches of snow had fallen. Worried about Beck at school I called them to find that they were in the process of asking all parents to collect their children. So off Iain went again, this time finding it really hazardous even with four-wheel drive. Back home it wasn’t long before they were outside building a snowman and having a snowball fight before taking a walk with the camera to admire the radically different scenery and capture the moment. The snow melted within twenty four hours but the snowman lasted for several days as it continued to be cold most of the following week.

There is little news with regard to the winery. We continue to wait for planning permission. From time to time we try and chase up progress but are generally greeted with comments such ‘C’est la France’ or ‘C’est l’administration’. The architect continues to be optimistic that we will have our wine making facility up and running before the 2004 harvest. For now all we can do is hope and pray. I have paid visits to the three major banks in Duras this month to discuss the possibility of a loan towards the cost of the project. Interesting to experience the different attitudes of each bank. One quizzed me endlessly about absolutely everything, and wanted photocopies of absolutely everything. However they didn’t visit us at the vineyard. The other two banks both arranged visits to us and brought with them their ‘specialists’ in agricultural finance. Of these two one arranged a visit within the following week, whereas the other has taken over a month to make the visit. Each bank has come up with different options, different issues and concerns so from that point of view it has been an education. The question of a loan, for what and from who is ongoing.

I have now completed my introduction to wine tasting course. I fear that more work will be required on my part if I am to be better able at discerning the various facets of a wine. I have to say that the course went on for rather longer than I thought was necessary, but this was certainly partly due to the constant need for French people to express everything they want to say in at least three different ways. Iain only ever came to one of the five sessions; he found the French too challenging and the presentation of the subject uninteresting. Oh well. One of the best aspects of the course for me, apart from the immersion in the French language, was the opportunity to taste many of the local Cotes de Duras wines.

Iain has decided that work on replacing the pool terracing must be planned so we have been out looking for some new tiles. We found them in Point.P (bit like a builders merchants crossed with Homebase) and placed our order for them. Delivery was promised within a few days but in the event it took about a month before the tiles, the sand, the cement, were all delivered. Although Iain has been frustrated at not being able to start this he has not needless to say been idle as there is always something else to do. When sitting sipping a ‘petit blanc’ with Jose one evening and discussing the pool terracing Jose advised us that we would need a ‘dame’ for the terrace! What? After pulling ourselves together we learn that it is not someone you hire to make the poolside look pretty but rather a ‘whacker’ machine for compressing the base of the terracing! We also spent some time contemplating redoing the kitchen but have finally concluded that we really shouldn’t be spending the money on it right now when there is so much else to buy. In fact the house in general is just going to have to wait unless the jobs we do can be undertaken pretty quickly/cheaply. However we are not totally without income as our second part payment for the 2003 harvest arrived at the end of the month. A small consolation. And Iain has started to build the fitments for our wardrobe in the room that one day will be our bedroom. His handyman skills are improving rapidly.

And last but by no means least is the smell……Iain and Granddad spent many many hours of contemplation, digging, lifting manhole covers and generally pacing around sniffing at anything that could possibly be a source to try to get to the bottom of the abominable smell that seems to originate in the cellar. One of the funniest moments of the month was when I went down to the cellar to find them both sniffing the end of a drainpipe – to no effect I might add. Anyway, remarkably it was the sniffing that identified the source – an overflow pipe in the floor – had to pick Iain off the floor when he put he sniffed that one. This apparently leads to the ditch outside our property as does the outflow from our septic tank (this is not right, the tank should drain into a kind of soakaway, but that’s another story) which is, to put it politely, a little pongy. Iain’s final analysis was that a pressure difference caused the smell to be drawn into the house, so he took the slightly risky approach of sealing the overflow pipe and bingo, no smell. If only we’d listened when Beck mentioned the smell in the ditch a couple of weeks earlier. We now know a lot more about our waste water systems but we still need to sort out the root cause of the problem.

February 2004

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