back again and waiting for spring

No news should always be good news – but it’s not exactly what you are looking for, when you come back to this blog. So I have to explain, why you didn’t find any new post during the last 3 months.

Well, it’s mostly good news: since November, the wines from our 2009 harvest have found their way down into the barrel-cellar by going through the smallest model of our traditional wine-presses.

small press

What we call our “press cake” had a beautiful color and went into the garden to join the compost.

press-cake

We did the usual washing up and then stored it all away, hoping to need a bigger model again for the next harvest.

cleaning the press

When the last autumn leaves had fallen, we started one of the most important works in the vineyard: pruning – which means preparing the next harvest, by deciding, how many buds we will have in spring, so how many grapes will be possible and finally which quantity of harvest we will have in autumn . At least that’s the theoretical part – between this decision and the final result, ther are all the non controllable things that can happen – frost, hale, grape deseases or – like last year – wild animals in love with your grapes…

Bur let’s stick to the theory: I started with the grape variety, which needs the longest period to ripen its grapes: in our case, that’s the Mourvedre – starting late in spring and asking for a long sunny, but not too hot period in late summer and far into autumn, to give us it’s best.

old pruning scissors

For years, I used the traditional pruning scissors for this – till I started to suffer terribly from aking arms – especially, if I spend the day in the wines and the evenings at my computer…

electrical pruning scissors

And so I finally invested into the new electrical scissors with a battery back on your back, which have also the advantage, to leave one hand free, to collect the woods you cut away: makes work much easier -

electrocoup

and – joined with a orthopedical arm stand for my mouse hand at the computer, I can say that my arms are like new:-) and I’m no longer afraid, when pruning season arrives…

pruning

As we want to obtain ripe grapes with concentrated flavors, I prune severely: 3 arms with only one apparent bud – so theoretically enough new wood in spring, to give 6 new branches with around 5 grapes for the whole plant to nourish.

Mourvedre pruned severely

As you can see, we use the traditional form for most of our grape varieties: it’s called Gobelet around here – it’s well adapted for varieties which have tough, upstanding branches which don’t need any external support in spring and summer – ideal for Mourvedre.

I had done half of the work before Christmas – so I went to Germany to see my mother – and then we come to the less good news: my laptop was stolen in the train on my way back to France – and you imagine the trouble I was in before replacing it and making sure, that the material loss was the only one, I had – as I lost all my passwords for blogs and websites too… and had to change them, once I could recall them…

and then winter arrived even in the South of France – with cold winds and more snow than we had seen for a long time:

snow in Lisson

so I had to stay inside and wait for better conditions to continue the work in the wines.

Well, you may be reassured, I found enough things to do – there was cellar work and the preparation of our participation in the great event of VINISUD 2010 last week.

But that will be my next post… still waiting for spring to arrive….

 

Nearly finished

while the autumn colors transform our landscape into beautiful pictures,

valley of the river Orb

we go on working on the wines in our cellar. We have chosen a clear day last week, to rack our barrels with the 2008 vintage. It will now have one more cold rest in the cellar, before being bottled. Both wines (a Pinot one and ou Mourvedre) were already full-bodied and promising.

You have come across them in summer here – and I can tell you, that the Pinot has added a deep cherry-note to his aroma fan. And while it is still a bit more dominated by barrel notes, the Mourvedre confirms its strength and developes more wild herbs aromas and a surprising silky texture.

We did the last tasting and pigeage on the 2009 – and I was so pleased by what I discovered in my glass, that I couldn’t resist to carry this new baby around the house to familiarize it with some beloved places of our domaine life.

on a persian carpet

in music

mirror, mirror on the wall…

the answer is simple

2009 in the autumn sun

We are now waiting for another day with high atmospheric pressure to press the wine and transfer it by gravity into the barrel in our cellar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

every day a little bit more

As I told you in my last post, it’s not yet wine – but while the natural yeasts are going ahead in transforming grape sugar into alcohol, it’s getting more wine-like every day. The saccharometer is indicating less sugar left to transform every day – the cap of stems and grape skins comes up more and more easily, pushed by the gas formed during the transformation, and my work of “pigeage” becomes easier, as it gets softer in the process…

half way through fermentation

The color is beautiful, a deep velvet like purple red – and even if it’ s still rather sweet, you can detect more complex fruit aromas and some tannins – yes, our 2009 – even if it’s not a big quantity, is on its way to become a real wine – a mystical moment, which brings back a smile on my face after all the previous deception…

You can find a beautiful article about white juice with the usual gorgeous pictures on Bert Celce’s webside – just another color and a bigger cellar:-)…

 

after the harvest: cellar work

Well, keeping your fingers crossed didn’t really help – as we didn’t have any rain since my last post, all our co-habitants around our vineyard doubled up in love for our grapes and braved the fences – badgers and wild boars were joined by roe deer, who couldn’t find any fresh grass – and they all enjoyed our juicy, sweet grapes…

No new photos of the massacre, just so much: we will have not enough grapes, to elaborate our three distinct wines in 2009 – there will be a “passe tout grain” – a mixture of Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc, Petit Verdot and Mourvedre – but I doubt, that it will “be an uncomplicated, fruity wine intended to be consumed young” as they tell about the Burgundy passetoutgrain AOC in the wikipedia article…

You can see the already intensive color and the potential alcoholic degree on our “mustimetre” or must weight. Ours is the classical French model “Dujardin” – I think, in English, it’s called a saccharometer – not yet the modern refractometer – and it showed potential 15 for the juice before fermentation started in our smallest stainless steel vat.

In the meantime, fermentation started and I enjoy taking a glass each day, before I crush the “chapeau de marc” – the cap, that is build by grape skins and stems (we don’t destemme our grapes) on top of the juice by stumping it down into the liquid with a heavy piece of wood. This helps to extract more color and tannins and keep the fermentation with our natural yeasts going…

not yet wine...

 

busy month of August – some good ad some bad news

After the lazy Sunday there was a large gap without any news from Lisson. But that doesn’t mean, that I spend my time reading books in the shadow or bronzing at the nearby Mediterranean seaside (Narbonne Plage at only 60 km from here…).

No, it means rather that it has been a very busy month for me. With a lot of work going on in the vines – which always need cleaning, not to get overgrown by our wild herbs and to keep a salutary, easy drying “atmosphere” around the grapes.

This is Klaus’ work with the brush-cutter – as already shown in June in my article “Ty it up and keep it clean”. Normally there may also be some spraying necessary in the beginning or August (to do it later, would be harmful for the indigenous yeast on the grape skins).

But this year, after a short attack of oidium (powdery mildew – you remember?), we could put away the sprayer and it was not even necessary, to apply copper against mildew – as there wasn’t any (or at least only some small spots, which were quickly dried out by our tramontane winds). So you will have to wait for next year, if you want to see me reporting about my “man in blue” in the Lisson vines.

The good news is, that our grapes went on changing color during all the month, from green to a mixture of green, mauve, purple to nearly black – as we grow mainly red varieties:

Mourvedre 08/01/09

Mourvedre 08/21/09

Mourvedre 08/28/09

You can see, that the branches too changed color, they have become ridged and more wood-like during the last 4 weeks and can now support the growing weight of those grapes. Even the stems are becoming less green, which is important, because we don’t destem after harvest, so if they stay too greenish, we would have a risk of “green” tastes in our wines.

We also had to work on our electric fences, as every year. One of the biggest problems of our vineyard in the middle of the woods is not linked to diseases or even – keep your fingers crossed – bad weather, but is linked to grape lovers, we didn’t count on when we cleaned the hillside to implant our vines: I’m talking about wild boars, badgers and all the other grape lovers on four legs…

Amy from La Gramire talked about them last week – and I wish her more luck than we had, in spite of our solidly fixed 5 fences with batteries and solar panels: when they really smell our fruit – and they know exactly, when it’s is about to contain enough sugar to be considered ripe enough, to give us good wine, they arrive from the woods all around and brave the fences (or dig underneath), and can make a tremendous damage in only one night:

they are inside...

Cot (Malbec) 08/21/09

Pinot 08/21/09

Merlot 08/28/09

So the bad news is: nearly one third of our harvest has already disappeared, gulped up by all those animals, who don’t have any serious enemy left – except the hunters, who killed already two of them in the middle of August besides our vines, but who are “overrun” by the enormas amount of wild boars around in our area, since they tried to augment their number about 20 years ago by setting free a cross-breed of domestic pigs and wild ones, which has invaded everything ever since – and as they can give birth to twice as much piglets and bring them up without any problem, as our mild winters and all the oak and chestnut woods, which are no longer cultivated, give them more than they need to eat… cultivating fruit, grapes or even a vegetable garden is about to become impossible in our area…

And it doesn’t help and console me, that some people take it as a proof, that organic farming is superior to conventional farming, as even boars prefer non chemically treated grapes – even it it was true (and so a very “natural” labeling) – it doesn’t give me back the result of a whole years work and it won’t fill my barrels and the bottles later…

So: Good luck to you, Amy, I will keep my fingers crossed for your Roussane!

And you may all do the same for our late riping grapes as Mourvedre, Cabernets and Petit Verdot, who are not yet sufficiently ripe to start “rescuing” them…

 

lazy sunday at Lisson…

finaly the weather forecast is up to our hopes: dry, sunny, but with around 28 degrees Centigrade (82 Fahrenheit) no longer the canicule we had last week and which stressens the plants and makes every work in the vines a mere nightmare, and no new thunderstorms anounced for the next days – our grapes will be able to ripen slowly but surely, like this beautiful Mourvedre behind the house

mourvedre 19 july 09

So I took a lazy sunday off, to bouquine – which means to sit confortably in the shade of our wild vine pergola and read some of the books stocked in a pile for months or weeks and waiting for a closer look and comment. For this sunday, I choose three of them, all written by women – in different manners all about wine, two French, one American.

I had a look at all three, when they arrived (thanks to Amazon and Co, who made my valley less lonely), but I wanted to go through them pencil in hand, keep more than a “first glance, first sniff” impression, to see, whether there is some mouth-feeling, some longueur en bouche – whether they tell me something about the author behind the book which goes au del of the jacket blurb…

bouquiner is not simply to read...

One is about “The battle for love and wine”, the other one about “Les femmes et l’amour du vin” and the third a socio-ethnographic research about the market of excellence “Les grands crus a l’epreuve de la mondialisation” – so it will be funny, to find out, whether after savoring each separately, there will be a book-pairing possible in the end:-).

To start my tasting, I took the one, which arrived already before Christmas in my letter-box – as one of the presents, I gave to myself, sticking to the French saying: On n’est jamais aussi bien servi que par soi meme (for my French readers: wordpress doesn’t take any accents…, sorry!).

A good choice to stay awake in my cosy corner in the shade:-)! suivre…

 

new wine and pyrotechnics

While the work goes on in the vineyard, cleaning the wines as well from additional shoots as from ever sprouting grass and wild herbs, to cerate a dry and fungus clean environment, we had the chance to choose an ideal day for working on the new wine from 2008: high pressure, dry and cool wind…

The wines have finally finished their malolactic fermentation in the barrels. While in “modern” winemaking, grape juice is normally inoculated with preselected bacterias, you can buy in any enological shop, we don’t use these king of products and count on the naturally present lactic acid bacterias of our wines. As they don’t work under a certain temperature, it may happen, that the malolactic fermentation stops during winter and we have to wait till spring or even early summer, like this year, till it starts again.

While it’s not finished, wines may be a little bit cloudy and when tasting it, you can easily feel the “spritz” of the carbon dioxide liberated during the process. There are more exacts methods, to follow the evolution, which we use too, like the malolactic chromatography test kit, which economizes us the journey to the next laboratory at Bziers (60 km).

This time, I just tasted and was sure, that everything was finally all right:-)!

Pinot and Mourvedre 2008

So I spend an afternoon pumping over from one barrel to a clean one, paying attention to the coulor of the juice while doing so, to prevent to pump the solid parts, which had been separated by cold and gravity during winter and gathered on the bottom of the barrel.

colors of yeast - couleurs lie de vin

These solid parts, made of yeast and other bigger compounds, have a beautiful color and we gather them in the end, to fill them into bottles for a good friend, who likes to use them in special sauces accompanying dear…

The wines looked clear, no sparkling on the tip of the tongue, a much rounder mouth-feeling than during winter, when we did the last tests.

reflections of wine 2008

The moment when the malolactic fermentation is finished and we pump the wine slowly into freshly cleaned barrels, is also the moment when we put for the first time sulfur dioxid (SO2) into our wines, to protect them from bacterial deviation during the next 10 or 12 months they will stay in the barrels.

contains (very few) sulfites

When bottled, their remains very few SO2 in the wines, for the 2006 and 2007, it was less than 10mg of total So2 – so we could even have omitted the warning “contains sulfites” on our labels – but as we use it during wine elaboration, we preferred to mark: contains less then 10 mg/l on our labels, to inform allergic wine drinkers.

Yesterday evening, we took a break, as it was the night of the fireworks at Olargues, to celebrate the 14. July – Bastille Day French national holiday..

And even if the fireworks in our small village (500 habitants) may not be as big and impressive as at New Orleans, New York, San Francisco or Paris, it’s always nice to assist at these moments, when all the street lights go out and the event starts on the old devils bridge across the river Jaur.

I took some photos with my small pocket camera – they are not of professional quality, but two of them reminded me the emotions I felt when tasting the young wines from the barrels the other day.

Pinot Noir exploding

The Pinot Noir – future “Clos du Cure 2008″, exploding with much strength and warms in your mouth, not yet totally decided about where to establish its harmony amongst tannines, fruit and alcohol.

And the much darker Mourvedre, who will be the future “Clos des Cedres 2008″, deep, profound, but already surprising by its harmony and freshness – revealing a beautiful deploying fan of aromas which lasts for a small eternity even in the emptied glass….

Mourvedre deploying its aroma fan

 

much adoo about a well known German wineguide

Much adoo in the German wine blogging scene, as well among winery blogs as even more on blogs written by wine journalists, about the protest action of a bunch of renown German top wineries against the demand of the publisher of the most influent wine guide to German wines, who asked for the first time a participation fee, to help them, to edit their guide.

Even if it was underlined by the editor, that there would be no direct connection between mentions in the guide and the contribution of 195 Euros, which should also give the right to communicate about an eventual entry in the guide, this new practice arose a lot of protest and many colleagues were wondering, whether independence of the guides judgment would be really guarantied.

Lisson wines, which are French wines, were never concerned by this guide (neither by their French pendant, as we were never asked to send samples). So I can’t even tell, whether they practice the same policy in France – at least I’ve never heard about it, but that may simply mean, that my French colleagues are used to this kind of fee, as it seems to be normal, that you pay, when participating in one of the well known wine competitions, to get a gold, silver or bronze medal in your category, which you can stick to your bottles afterwards or announce proudly on your Website.

If you want to know more about the German storm in a glass of wine, you can go to the blog of Johner Estate, where Patrick Johner had the good idea to write in English about the trouble and translate also the protest letter of his German VDP colleagues. There is a kind of blog-press-condensation in English on the winerambler’s blog.

As I said, Lisson wines don’t figure in these main stream guides in France. Very few journalists or guide publishers seem to know, that they exist – which isn’t anomalous for a very small winery in an area beyond AOC Appellations (we are north of Saint Chinian and Faugère, further up in the mountains), and does deliver it’s rare wines under a Table Wine label.

So I’m always surprised, if somebody tells me, that he has found Lisson in a printed guide – and you can imagine, that I don’t hesitate, to buy it and look up, what they’ve written about us.

One of them was a guide about natural wines with special terroir expression, edited by Jean-Paul Barriolade, Carol Rouchès, François Morel et Marie-Christine Cogez-Marzani

Vin Vignobles et Vignerons

Guide on natural wines. Vin, Vignobles et Vignerons

The other one is le Guide de l’amateur des vins naturels ( The natural wine lovers guide), author Dominique Lacout, edited at Paris by Jean Paul Rocher editors. Which is nt only a guide to natural wines, but also to winebars and restaurants all over France, where you can find their wines.

The natural wine lovers guide

Neither of them asked for samples, to review them, but it seems, that the authors “came across” our wines by the recommendation of other wine-lovers – they didn’t ask for a “participation fee” neither, just some further information about the wines, once they had decided to include them into their guide.

They are not the kind of wine writers, who classify everything with stars or points, it’s not a competition, it’s just meant for the passionate wine lover, who is looking for wines made by vintners, „soucieux de leur terroir, attentives à la vinification, souvent en agriculture biologique, voire biodynamique prennent des risques en faisant des cuvées atypiques ou sans soufre…“ attentif at their terroir and during vinification, often involved in biological farming, even biodynamic farming methods in the vineyard, who take risks by elaborating atypical cuvées or without sulfur...

I was rather proud to find Lisson directly besides Didier Barral and other more well known natural vintners of the Languedoc…

 

Back from Vinexpo at Bordeaux – off and in

Three days of and away to Bordeaux at the beginning of this week – what a difference from our quiet valley of Lisson. Even if Bordeaux is a small provincial town compared to Paris or London, during VINEXPO, the most famous international wine trade fair pour professional buyers, it takes the air of a big city, with 40 000 visitors from all over the world, who come to see thousands of winemakers, who make their best to find new clients. Just have a look at the photos taken inside Vinexpo, which a fellow wine-blogger published two days ago, to see, that they deploy lots of pomp and circumstances, to attract attention and win the war of selling wines.

Bordeaux wine marketing at Vinexpo photo: Eric Bernardin

When I first saw that photo with the gleaming luxury car, I wondered, whether you would get it as first price of a lottery or if it would be given as an extra bonus to the most successful importer – but I think, like all the beautiful young girls in uniforms, it was just meant as an eye-catcher – sex sells, but sport-cars too:-)…

All around this official place, where black suits and ties are still a majority, even on a hot summer day and where you have to put on your smoking, when you are part of the VIP section, invited to one of the even more select evening receptions of the more famous Chteaux of the region.

I didn’t attend the official exposition halls, too much noise, too many people, too much choice, too much of everything for me, to be able to taste serenely and appreciate – I’ve noticed that often enough during my past years at PROWEIN, the other important European international wine trade fair at Duesseldorf, my home town, in Germany.

Place de la Bourse

So I just discovered some of the impressing 19th century buildings of Bordeaux, which tell the story of it’s glory – with big avenues, huge squares, its impressing banks of the Garonne (which I called a river (riviere) by asking my way, to learn that this important flow is a fleuve).

banks of the Garonne

But I also discovered the less glamorous off parts of the city, just turning around a corner or following one of the cours a little bit further on from the center.

quiet popular square away from the center

closed restaurant in the center

Wine under all its form is omnipresent at Bordeaux, of course. Whether it is as vines as decoration in front of a wine bar or even to sell in a local flower shop (135 Euros – more expensive than a lot of bottles of wine)

vine in the middle of Bordeaux

Or if it is the special wine-books area of one of the last and biggest private book shops of France, la librairie Mollat, where I spend one hour lingering around their international choice of books about all subjects about and around wine.

Mollat: biggest independant bookshop in France

I was allowed to run through the bookshelves and open all the books, without being bothered and even to take some pictures:

wine books at librairie Mollat, Bordeaux

A readers and book collectors dream:-)!

As exciting as my discovery of Bordeaux was my first couchsurf experience, a volunteer-based worldwide network connecting travelers with members of local communities, who offer free accommodation and/or advice. Learning that there would be no bed at a hotel available under 230 Euros per night and having 3 nights to spend, I looked for an alternative solution – came across the couchsurfing web-page, dared to write to one of its Bordeaux members, a bit shy, because I could see, that the majority of the members could have easily been my sons or daughters, and was received with so much friendliness and warmth on two couches during my stay, that I immediately became an addict of the system!

Well I have not yet started to tell you about the main reason of my voyage: our first public OFF meeting of the European blogging winemakers at Chteau Luchey Halde – I think, I’ll have to leave that for my next post – my vines are waiting for me outside…

to be continued...soon

I just can reassure you, that we didn’t have any difficulties with the VINEXPO officials – we were far enough away from their main entrance and perhaps more considered as the usual inoffensive cannibals than as a real commercial concurrency.

 

ty it up and keep it clean…

Flowering goes on, even the Mourvedre started and our first heat wave (86 F /30 C) during the last days helped our sulfur spraying to do it’s work – no oidium (powdery mildew) on the leaves, and a heavy wind prevented mildew so far, so no copper spraying not yet needed.

The vines are not only growing, they seem to be shooting up every day – and they are looking for support where they can find it:

tendril 1

Each has it’s individual way to take hold of the wires with a hard grip

tendril 2

or more graceful and you never find the same constellation twice

tendril 3

and they are even inventive, when the space seems already taken.

tendrils mariage

and where there is no wire, they work together in mutual help…

Some of the upright Mourvedre plants are already higher than me (which is not so difficult…:-)… and as this is a grape variety with vigorous stems which don’t bend easily to the ground, we can keep them without wires or trellis systems as individual plants and they are formed and pruned in the socalled gobelet (goblet) system, typical for many vineyards of the South of France. You will learn a lot more about them next winter, when you may accompany me on my long and lonely pruning days in the vines…

Mourvedre behind Lisson farmhouse

As you can see easily, we have to continue the “cleaning” of the vineyard, which started already early this spring,and consists in brushcutting the natural herbs and flowers, before they become a source of humidity, which would once again spread fungus to easily to the leaves and the fruit, if aver we have a rainy period. No tractor possible in our steep vineyards and narrow terraces, and as we would never use chemical weedkillers on our land, this is never ending hard work.

Klaus started behind the house early in spring

brushcutting

Then we went on to the upper terraces with Pinot Noir, which is an early “starter” among our grape varieties – also trained in gobelet shape, but with individual wooden poles, to bind up its much more supple stems later in summer.

Pinot clean

And as we had some rain in May, he has to restart the work downhill again…

terrasses of Les Echelles and oliv trees on a sunny morning in june

a never ending story as so many things in nature and agriculture…