So here I am on the eve of the big push. The business end of proceedings, either the final or penultimate chapter depending on the events of the next two weeks. I've been looking forward to this for ages, although with changing jobs and moving out of London it's been a bit on the back burner. Hence the trepidation I feel and the lack of preparation. Anyhow there's no going back and I've booked two weeks off work and I'm excited about the challenge ahead.
Nico emailed me last week and told me that the grapes are fine and to get ready for the harvest. Mindful of the summer's toil when I almost lost the will to keep going, I'm taking along Juliet and Mike's son William to give me a hand. He speaks fluent French which will come in handy, I feel such a clot when Nico's mum and dad are there.
I'm not sure where we'll be staying. At Viranel for sure but Nico was a bit vague on that point. I'm presuming/hoping I'll be staying in the same room as last time. I feel a bit bad about William might have to put up with something a little more rough and ready. But hey he's a student and spent most of the summer living in the shed at the bottom of his parent's garden, so he should be used to it. It's only until Friday. I'm really grateful of the help and tomorrow night we'll sample the nightlife in Cessenon-sur-Orb to celebrate his birthday, September 11th. We'll probably hit the English restaurant, then a couple of sherries at the bar Europa. We'll see, there might be a bit of an early start on Wednesday morning, the day penciled in for the harvest. Four rows shouldn't take that long, a couple of hours perhaps. We might be finished by lunch.
Picking the grapes is relatively straightforward, it's what comes after that I'm not sure about. I've done a little swotting up though. There are some amusing videos of people treading grapes on YouTube which presumably I'll have to do at some point.
I can't believe I'm nearly there. This'll be my sixth visit in all. I've seen the vineyard in every season decked out in the golds and reds of autumn when Nico first showed me my rows to the barren earth and bare stumps of mid-winter when armed with secateurs in gloved hands we pruned the vines in preparation for the growing season. Then in Spring when leaves began to develop and poppies and other wild flowers grew at the end of each row to the heat of June and the tiny tight green bunches of grapes which I painstakingly thinned when the vineyard resembled a jungle almost reaching the point of no return.
I'm hoping against hope that in some way I might be able to capture some of the character of the place in my wine but I have to be realistic. The odds are stacked against it happening. I'm prepared for failure. Wine or vinegar? We'll soon find out.
Friday, 28 September 2007
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Where there's a Will..
I read in the local paper about a guy who had made a wine from grapes growing up the side of his house. The headline read Chateauneuf du Peckham. It had a slight Rodney Trotter ring to it akin to Peckham Spring water but it was intriguing. At least it could be done. Mind you I wouldn't like to try the bloke's wine and feel sorry for all his friends who would be receiving a bottle for Christmas. I began to wonder whether I could do the same. What if I was to buy a few vines from a garden centre, plant them in my back garden and wait for them to sprout forth. I began to be attracted to Garden Centres, erstwhile places to avoid and in particular the soft fruit sections. I decided to buy a puny looking thing, to put my toe in the water. It had a funny German sounding name but the tag described its produce as delicious. So I planted it in the back garden in the sunniest spot I could find. It looked forlorn and bedraggled as the rain began to fall. This is England afterall. I wasn't going to get much wine out of it, a thimblefull at most. It just too difficult to grow vines here. They need lots of sunshine. Global warming has at least made ripening grapes easier but you're still looking at hardy plants bred especially for these northerly parts. Some people are planting Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and making some noteworthy Sparkling Wines and English Wine is no longer an oxymoron but I'd still rather spend my hard earned cash on something French or Australian. Still when I saw a two day Viticulture workshop advertised at Plumpton College near Brighton I jumped at the chance. Here was a chance to get my hands dirty and drive a tractor as well.
As well as lots of theory delivered in a deadpan voice by he head lecturer we got to visit the college's two vineyards. We were shown round by Kevin, a New Zealander and viticulturalist par excellence. He fired off questions at us in an almost military manner. One theme kept emerging. How up against it vine growers are in this country. If the birds, the viruses and the insects dont get you the frosts will. Then there's the cost. I asked innocently how much it might cost to set up your own vineyard just so i could tick it off my list of options. 'After the posts, the wires, the rootstock, the labour and if you don't own the land around tin to fifteen grand' Kevin said. Not having tin grand to spare that option was crossed off. I did get to drive a tractor though. My overwhelming feeling though was one of disillusionment. After the two days making wine seemed an even more impossible task. What I needed was some help, preferably in a warm climate.
The internet is full of companies offering you the chance to have your own wine. The snag is you don't get to make it yourself. They rent you the rows and your welcome to come down and potter around but that's as far as it goes. To me that the musical equivalent of being in a cover's band. If I don't get to make the stuff myself then it's not for real.
The only person who I knew lived in a hot clmate was the old bass player in my band, Mart. Mart lived down near Valencia in Southern Spain. They grow alot of oranges there and also make a bit of wine. Before Mart and his wife Bev had relocated we'd been writing songs together and I'd been out a few times. When I mentioned the idea of making wine to Mart he was characteristically up for it. 'Yeah, we could rent an allottment and mek it in our garage'. 'Err, doesn't Bev use that as a laundry room?' 'Nah! she wont mind'. Somehow I think not. Nice idea though it was, it was never going to work. The usual run of events on my 'working holidays' to Mart's corresponded broadly to this sequence 'Get up, have breakfast, do some work in the studio, go for a swim in the pool, relax a bit, have a beer, that lounger looks very comfortable oh is it time for lunch already, have lunch, back in the studio for a bit, fancy a swim Mart?, fancy a beer Steve?better get something for the barbie later, watch Sky News or chill out by the pool while Mart goes to the supermarket, shall we listen to the mix?er what mix?let's come back to it tomorrow, cervesa??' No, if making music's anything to go by, making wine's doomed'
I'm left with few options. Louise who had watched my efforts with amusement and curiosity mentioned 'why don't you try Olly?'one day. 'What him, isn't he a bit of a nutter? As it turned out Olly was my last hope. I'd met him when we had gone for a holiday in the Languedoc region of Southern France. He ran the Maison des Vins in Saint Chinian, a quaint little town which gave it's name to an Appellation. Olly spoke good English. He was a very extrovert character. A lunatic might be a good description. He was very passionate about the wines of the area and very disparraging about English people trying to make wine in France. For this reason I'd crossed him off my list from the word go. But what if I disguised my true intentions? What if I made out I was writing an article on Languedoc wines for an English magazine? What if I said I just wanted to shadow a winemaker for a year to see how it's done?As a further guarantee against failure I got Mike, Louise's Brother-in-Law to email him. Mike and Louise's sister Juliette were friends of Olly and owned a holiday home in the region. It would be better coming from them. A week later and just when I was losing hope Mike forwarded on an email. In it Olly had come up with the goods.
'I have found a wnemaker for you. His name is Nicolas Bergasse at Chateau Viranel and he speaks very well English. He is expecting a phone call from you'
The only thing now was to contact this Nicolas Bergasse and arrange a visit. I checked out Chateau Viranel's website. It featured photographs of a middle aged man in various poses avec vines, avec dog, avec compost heap. He looked at one with nature. I wondered if this was Nicolas. I plucked up the courage to call the mobile number and managed to get through. It sounded like he was driving a tractor or something. Despite the bad reception I managed to find out when he was free. Armed with this information I booked a cheap flight through Ryanair. Fortuitously Juliet and Mike were heading down there at that time as well so I just tagged along. I'd finally found someone who could potentially make my dream come true, the only thing was how was I going to broach the subject that I wasn't actually there to write a piece on his winemaking skills but actually to use his vines and facilities to produce Chateau Hovington. Tricky!
As well as lots of theory delivered in a deadpan voice by he head lecturer we got to visit the college's two vineyards. We were shown round by Kevin, a New Zealander and viticulturalist par excellence. He fired off questions at us in an almost military manner. One theme kept emerging. How up against it vine growers are in this country. If the birds, the viruses and the insects dont get you the frosts will. Then there's the cost. I asked innocently how much it might cost to set up your own vineyard just so i could tick it off my list of options. 'After the posts, the wires, the rootstock, the labour and if you don't own the land around tin to fifteen grand' Kevin said. Not having tin grand to spare that option was crossed off. I did get to drive a tractor though. My overwhelming feeling though was one of disillusionment. After the two days making wine seemed an even more impossible task. What I needed was some help, preferably in a warm climate.
The internet is full of companies offering you the chance to have your own wine. The snag is you don't get to make it yourself. They rent you the rows and your welcome to come down and potter around but that's as far as it goes. To me that the musical equivalent of being in a cover's band. If I don't get to make the stuff myself then it's not for real.
The only person who I knew lived in a hot clmate was the old bass player in my band, Mart. Mart lived down near Valencia in Southern Spain. They grow alot of oranges there and also make a bit of wine. Before Mart and his wife Bev had relocated we'd been writing songs together and I'd been out a few times. When I mentioned the idea of making wine to Mart he was characteristically up for it. 'Yeah, we could rent an allottment and mek it in our garage'. 'Err, doesn't Bev use that as a laundry room?' 'Nah! she wont mind'. Somehow I think not. Nice idea though it was, it was never going to work. The usual run of events on my 'working holidays' to Mart's corresponded broadly to this sequence 'Get up, have breakfast, do some work in the studio, go for a swim in the pool, relax a bit, have a beer, that lounger looks very comfortable oh is it time for lunch already, have lunch, back in the studio for a bit, fancy a swim Mart?, fancy a beer Steve?better get something for the barbie later, watch Sky News or chill out by the pool while Mart goes to the supermarket, shall we listen to the mix?er what mix?let's come back to it tomorrow, cervesa??' No, if making music's anything to go by, making wine's doomed'
I'm left with few options. Louise who had watched my efforts with amusement and curiosity mentioned 'why don't you try Olly?'one day. 'What him, isn't he a bit of a nutter? As it turned out Olly was my last hope. I'd met him when we had gone for a holiday in the Languedoc region of Southern France. He ran the Maison des Vins in Saint Chinian, a quaint little town which gave it's name to an Appellation. Olly spoke good English. He was a very extrovert character. A lunatic might be a good description. He was very passionate about the wines of the area and very disparraging about English people trying to make wine in France. For this reason I'd crossed him off my list from the word go. But what if I disguised my true intentions? What if I made out I was writing an article on Languedoc wines for an English magazine? What if I said I just wanted to shadow a winemaker for a year to see how it's done?As a further guarantee against failure I got Mike, Louise's Brother-in-Law to email him. Mike and Louise's sister Juliette were friends of Olly and owned a holiday home in the region. It would be better coming from them. A week later and just when I was losing hope Mike forwarded on an email. In it Olly had come up with the goods.
'I have found a wnemaker for you. His name is Nicolas Bergasse at Chateau Viranel and he speaks very well English. He is expecting a phone call from you'
The only thing now was to contact this Nicolas Bergasse and arrange a visit. I checked out Chateau Viranel's website. It featured photographs of a middle aged man in various poses avec vines, avec dog, avec compost heap. He looked at one with nature. I wondered if this was Nicolas. I plucked up the courage to call the mobile number and managed to get through. It sounded like he was driving a tractor or something. Despite the bad reception I managed to find out when he was free. Armed with this information I booked a cheap flight through Ryanair. Fortuitously Juliet and Mike were heading down there at that time as well so I just tagged along. I'd finally found someone who could potentially make my dream come true, the only thing was how was I going to broach the subject that I wasn't actually there to write a piece on his winemaking skills but actually to use his vines and facilities to produce Chateau Hovington. Tricky!
Grape Expectations
Just over a year ago I had this idea that I wanted to make my own wine. Not the kind your dad used to make out of kits that always tasted awful but the real thing with real grapes. Maybe prompted by the several glasses of wine I'd consumed as well as a dissillusionment with urban city life, I announced one late summer's afternoon to a group of friends that I was going to produce a bottle of wine with my name on the label. There and then, mildly sloshed sitting in the back garden watching the last of the summer sun dissappear behind the rooftops of Nunhead it seemed a perfectly reasonable proposition. The following day however it didn't seem so straightforward. For starters where was I going to get these grapes from and although I worked in wine retail, actually making anything remotely drinkable required a good deal of expertise and money? I wasn't the green fingered type either. Louise my partner and I had tried an allottment once but gave up when our child Ben was born. Just as well as all we seemed to grow was Bind Weed. What I did have in my favour however was a stubborn refusal to give in verging on bloodymindedness. I'd also had some experience of making the impossible happen. As a extremely normal youth growing up in a remote part of the Midlands in the middle of the dull seventies I saw my future stretching out in front of me and I didn't like what I saw. My dad, was the Headmaster of the school I went to. Yes, that's right headmaster's son no less. I seemed genetically programmed to be a normal, well adjusted individual with a decent if unexciting career in education mapped out for me if I didn't balls it all up. Which is exactly what I did. Instead of doing what I was meant to do I did the opposite. I became the lead vocalist in a punk rock band. Well I suppose new wave would be more accurate. I'd morphed from swot to dropout almost overnight. Needless to say dad wasn't impressed but I'd yearned to be different and art and music were my real passions. Still I was a long way from making a record, the ultimate goal.
Basically, despite everything I kept at it. I couldn't play or sing but hey that was positively encouraged in those days. But I had bigger ideas and eventually we got to make a record. The day the square brown cardboard package arrived was one of the most exciting days of my life. I could barely contain myself opening it. Inside was a 7inch vinyl single in a picture sleeve. The Take 3 EP by B-Movie and on the inner label of the record was my name written by Steve Hovington. Here was a dream made reality, something I'd made and sweated over. A dream you could touch, see, hear and smell. That moment has stayed with me all my life, a moment when my expectations in life were wildly surpassed. I've made quite a few records since, some have exceeded expectations like our first single for a major label 'Remembrance Day' and 'Nowhere Girl' which I'm proud of but somehow, somewhere that simple moment when you are ultimately satisfied with something has been lost. Obviously the birth of my son Ben is the best moment of my life but I remain creatively unfulfilled and the desire to recapture some of that lost emotion is behind the urge to do something way beyond me and making wine is right up there with climbing high mountains as far as I'm concerned, virtually impossible. If I could achieve the goal of making my my own wine with my own label wouldn't I feel that enormous sense of satisfaction and achievement. It seemed the perfect antidote to the onset of winter. I was determined to do this but the only problem was where to start.
Basically, despite everything I kept at it. I couldn't play or sing but hey that was positively encouraged in those days. But I had bigger ideas and eventually we got to make a record. The day the square brown cardboard package arrived was one of the most exciting days of my life. I could barely contain myself opening it. Inside was a 7inch vinyl single in a picture sleeve. The Take 3 EP by B-Movie and on the inner label of the record was my name written by Steve Hovington. Here was a dream made reality, something I'd made and sweated over. A dream you could touch, see, hear and smell. That moment has stayed with me all my life, a moment when my expectations in life were wildly surpassed. I've made quite a few records since, some have exceeded expectations like our first single for a major label 'Remembrance Day' and 'Nowhere Girl' which I'm proud of but somehow, somewhere that simple moment when you are ultimately satisfied with something has been lost. Obviously the birth of my son Ben is the best moment of my life but I remain creatively unfulfilled and the desire to recapture some of that lost emotion is behind the urge to do something way beyond me and making wine is right up there with climbing high mountains as far as I'm concerned, virtually impossible. If I could achieve the goal of making my my own wine with my own label wouldn't I feel that enormous sense of satisfaction and achievement. It seemed the perfect antidote to the onset of winter. I was determined to do this but the only problem was where to start.
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