Wine therapy

If anything could pull me out of my depression about the lost barn then a wine tasting at VinEcole would be a pretty good bet.

I had booked my place at 'The rising stars of the Languedoc' tasting some weeks ago. As a result of a recommendation from Matthew Stubbs, owner of VinEcole, I found myself chauffeuring two Irish guests there as well - I can't complain, without the referral they wouldn't have been staying here at 42rvh and I was driving there anyway so two extra people in the car made no difference.

There were two of the featured winemakers present, which made the tasting of their wines more interesting and a large diverse group covering eight different nationalities.

As I am increasingly finding from these tastings and my own exploration of the wine of the region, there are a great number of very very exciting and delicious white wines being made here in the region.

I was totally stunned by the four whites that I tasted tonight - one from an estate whose red wines I have admired for a long time (Mas du Soleilla), one from Saint Chinian (Mas Champart), a fabulous red wine region but not the first great white I have had from there, one from Collioure (Domaine de la Rectorie), which by chance I had also served at dinner with Daniel and Cecile last Saturday and one from Limoux (Domaine de Mouscaillo), a beautifully balanced and clean chardonnay and I had the pleasure of sitting next to the winemaker for the night.

Equally, I was disappointed by the red wines on offer. The Languedoc produces a massive amount of fruity, spicy, delicious red wine and the standard is improving all the time too. As a result, I think that many producers are starting to try and produce something a little bit different - to try and make it stand out and be recognised and yet, what they should be doing, in my mind, is just making the best example of the best wines of this region because there is nothing wrong with them if they get it right and they market them properly.

Rant, rant - I'm in that sort of mood.

Tonight I sampled a 100% cabernet franc (Domaine Gayda), which had a fragrant fruity nose but was strong and powerful and dry - there is a reason that this grape is used in blends, a Corbieres that was 95% mourvedre (Ch La Baronne) that was so tannic that it sucked all the moisture and feeling from my mouth - ditto the comment re blending, a 100% carignan from the Roussillon (Clot de l'Oum) which blew my head off with it's intensity - ditto blending encore, and a 90% syrah (Ch Canet) which was the only red of the four that I really liked.

I adore all those grapes but I think I might prefer them in a classic Minervois or Corbieres GSM blend rather than as an 'almost' single cepage wine. Interestingly, Syrah can be quite an obnoxious wine on it's own - just think of Aussie Shiraz - same thing, more jazzy antipodean name but this syrah was a stand-out wine.

Maybe it helped having Floris, the Dutch owner of the estate, there to explain it all. He even bought along a bottle of the just pressed 2009 wine so that we could compare it to the 2007 we were tasting - how fantastic was that - these grapes had been harvested over the last few weeks and just pressed and this was the initial result.

This is what wine buyers taste to assess the quality of the vintage and to make their expert opinions as to whether it will be great or not. Well I can tell you that 2009 will be a great vintage in the Languedoc - the summer drought has reduced quantity but the quality is great. The Ch Canet 2009 tasted of raw red fruit but it was already a better wine than many other finished products I have tasted and it won't be ready for consumption or sale for another year.

The 2007 was as soft and round and fruity as a lovingly prepared Syrah could ever be - joy.

So what's my point? Well just that wine constantly and consistently surprises and amuses me - and that's the beauty of it - always a lovely, exciting and new discovery to be made, always a new winemaker to meet and get to know, always a new taste experience. I love it.

On the other hand, just don't mention barns to me.

Hotter than hot

Last evening there was a little soiree in the courtyard here at 42rvh which was orchestrated by Brigitte and Christine (beauty salon) and Sophie (music teacher). They all prepared a bit of food and we all bought a bit of wine and everyone moaned about the chavs renting the apartments upstairs, with their babies and dogs and filthy habits. The music teacher played some lovely jazz on the piano, we all applauded and wished each a 'bonne soiree', lots of kissing and it was all over as quickly as it started - but not before we had tidied the rubbish away and left the place spotlessly clean like the honest decent middle class folk we are.

The excuse for the event was the end of school for another year, which everyone in France seems to mark as a special occasion and then all pack up their Renault Espaces and head for exactly the same bit of beach that they headed for last year and the year before and when they were babies and their parents were babies etc. They are such creatures of habit - but then maybe I just notice it because it is slightly different - maybe the majority of Brits are just as much creatures of habit but I have never noticed.

I said last time that I wasn't going to talk about the heat, but it's too hot not to talk about the heat. At midnight last night it was still over 30 degrees and it doesn't feel any cooler this evening. There is no air movement either so no feeling of respite. It's ok if you just sit still but as soon as you move you start to sweat - which is not nice at all.

As for sleeping, it's difficult. Last night I slept fitfully and got up at 5.30am because it was better to be up than lying in bed. I finished all the outstanding ironing and cleaned the studio apartment ready for new guests tomorrow and the spare room ready for Amy arriving today - and then made breakfast for the guests before driving them down to Domaine Gayda and VinEcole for a wine tasting and lunch. All my jobs were done before midday - it has been slow work since then with a bit of sleep grabbed both before and after collecting Amy from the airport.

It is fabulous to have Amy here but she has been knocked out by the heat too. They told her on the plane that it was 42 in Carcassonne - I don't believe that for a minute but 38 or 39 is definitely a possibility.

We had a lovely dinner at La Roulotte. I am always amazed how few people are there considering how much everyone enjoys it when they go. I hope they survive. The owner was telling me that the problem with really hot weather is that everyone just goes to the beach and therefore isn't in town. He would be quite happy for it to rain, or be cloudy or cool, because everyone would look for other things to do besides being on the beach and may well end up in town eating at his restaurant.

We came straight home after dinner and took advantage of no-one being in the studio apartment and watched a movie. It was OK as long as we didn't move but Amy didn't last the course and went off to try and get some sleep - travelling is always tiring.

It all reminds me very much of the first day that I arrived here in Carcassonne, on my own, in July 2005. It was five months after we had completed the purchase and the first time that either of us had been down here since then. I arrived with a van full of stuff and (useless) builders on site. The electricity cut out in mid evening so I had no light and no music and there was so much noise on the street and it was so hot that I think I only got about two hours sleep.

I wondered what I was doing, why I was there and what was going to happen. It all feels a million miles away from now and it is a story in itself that I really should get around to writing down. One day.