Hibernating this winter? Certainly not!
In November the start of the pruning was finalised with the two Turkish gentlemen. They were extremely proud of the quality of their work last year, you remember we engaged several people last time, including the Monk and the Poles. This winter just the two Turks and some help from Fernand, the father of our old vigneron. Their price per vine agreed, a little high, but included cutting the ‘cornes,’ the old knobbly growth and burning the cuttings, trimming last years growth, selecting and leaving the choice new shoots and digging a shallow trench around each vine.
The work is nearly finished now, in February, and the vines look neat and tidy all ready to receive their new green shoots in a few weeks time. The skies are blue and the colours still muted but beautiful and the whole landscape is calm as if quietly gathering strength for the forthcoming efforts of the new growing season.
We put all our efforts into selling, going back and forth between London and Beaujolais. Making sure we have stocks of wine in London to supply our customers for the Christmas and New Year festivities. We presented our wine at a dinner, a finale to the Beaujolais Marathon, a regular feature in the Beaujolais calender. This year the Cru Beaujolais wines were featured at this event for fifteen hundred people. in the past it had only been a celebration of the Beaujolais Nouveau, a fashion that we think has had its day and on which subject I have spoken about with feeling in previous posts. So thank goodness for the opportunity to show off the superior Crus. We circulated among the guests offering our wine. There was some interest but the tasting started far too late and our marathon runners had already over indulged. We had to compete with the cacophony of the live cabaret…..we were exhausted! I have to mention though that one of the guests I met among the hundreds had been reading my Blog!!
In the next posts we go to Amsterdam and Paris. We discover new customers in London, take our wine to the Reform Cub, the starting point for Jules Verne’s 80 day adventure around the world, and dine at The Duke of Wellington ‘Gastro Pub’, recently receiving rave revues, and our Regnie on the wine list! We work with an artist to plan our bottle label for the 2007 vintage, and plan our website…….
May 11th, 2008 at %I:%M %p It’s funny that you mention that the Beaujolais Nouveau celebration gas had its day. I used to get excited about it too, but now it’s doesn’t seem that exciting. “Jumped the shark” maybe how I would describe it these days. YMMV, taw