Virgile's Vineyard Read online

  ‘Do you think they’ve caught my best side?’ asks Jean-Marc, as we marvel at the hours that must have been sacrificed to personal grooming in order to create this moment of unrecognizable spruceness. ‘Not a bad little write-up, for a place that opened in July,’ he adds. ‘But more importantly …’ He turns to a feature devoted to rising Languedoc wine stars, where the photoshoot has confined itself to portraits of the relevant bottles. Prominent amongst these is a distinctively flourishing serigraphic signature. ‘Here’s an even better write-up for something bottled in June.’ He beams with almost fatherly pride.

  Jean-Marc does eventually focus on our order but it is much later than Virgile hoped when we return to tackle the remontages du jour – the two tanks of Syrah and the main tank of Cinsault.

  The smaller, super-concentrated Cinsault, with the twenty per cent potential alcohol, he will leave for another day. He has yet to decide what to do with it. The yeasts, he explains, would normally keep going until all the grape sugar was converted into alcohol and there was nothing left for them to feed on. However, in cases like this, with exceptionally high sugar levels, the fermentation will almost certainly stop around fifteen per cent, because the yeasts will be killed by the strength of the alcohol, which they themselves have created. So the wine will probably end up as a semi-sweet, red ‘curiosity’.

  ‘Like a Vendange Tardive?’ I ask, remembering a little of Mme Maraval’s arrested fermentations and residual sugars, down in Mireval.

  ‘Exactly. Something perhaps to accompany foie gras… Or possibly desserts … But would it sell?’ he worries.

  As usual, with the érafloir monopolizing most of the usable space, the doors of the cave remain open for maximum manoeuvrability. ‘I can’t wait to get that machine out of here,’ Virgile grumbles at frequent intervals. ‘In fact, I can’t wait to get to the final day!’ he adds almost as often.

  The open-door operation is, as always, attracting plenty of idle curiosity. Luc, the truffle baron, lingers only long enough to be satisfied that the wheeler-dealer’s vocation offers more repose, while Stéphane, the would-be particulier, slowly scratches his close-cropped head in bewilderment, as the dream of a break from the co-op slips back by another two years. There is even an encouraging number of interested purchasers.

  The only snag is the absence of anything for sale.

  ‘You can buy it in the next village, Montpeyroux,’ says Virgile hopefully, knowing all too well that they will probably succumb to some alternative vente directe on the way. ‘But what else can I do?’ he asks me. ‘With seven and half hectares and all this cellar-work, I can’t do everything. I have to delegate something and selling’s the one thing that doesn’t impact on quality.’

  Despite the late hour, he manages to make time for everyone, not least a succession of tiny, uncomprehending village children who never fail to distract him for a joke or a cuddle. He would make a natural father but, as he has often lamented, Saint Saturnin remains a village of bachelors.

  And a business deal forced Sarah to cancel her summer visit.

  *

  ‘This isn’t an aristocratic house,’ says Count Henri de Colbert, the owner of the Château de Flaugergues since 1972, as he leads me up the monumental eighteenth-century staircase, occupying almost a third of this otherwise elegantly simple building. ‘Like all the so-called “Montpellier Folies”, it belonged to one of the newly-rich financial people, the Montpellier Mafia, if you like.’ He pauses halfway up to show me one of the staircase’s famous, gravity-defying key vaults. ‘Etienne de Flaugergues,’ he continues past some magnificent tapestries, ‘a Councillor at Montpellier’s Court of Revenue, Grants and Finance, bought the place in 1696. An ordinary farm, it was then. It took him until 1740 to turn it into what you see today.’

  ‘But it was already a wine estate?’ I ask.

  ‘It was a vineyard in Roman times,’ says the Count, as if a mere three hundred years of tradition might be beneath his contempt. ‘But remember, there was very little monoculture anywhere until the nineteenth century. Still, we mustn’t get bogged down in history. This is a living place – the only “Folie” which is an operating wine estate and open to the public and permanently lived in.’ (I have already seen the subtle clues of occupation in the bulge of the Count’s folded pyjamas under the covers and the Kerouac novel on the bedside table, in an otherwise faithfully nineteenth-century bedroom.) ‘They’re called “Folies” because they were built “in the foliage”, not because they were acts of madness – although some were madder than others. They were mostly summer residences.’

  ‘This close to the city?’ I query.

  The Château de Flaugergues is certainly close to Montpellier. It is effectively in Montpellier, just three kilometres from the city centre and completely surrounded by offices, hypermarkets and ring roads. The post office knows it more prosaically as 1744 Avenue Albert Einstein. Incredibly, however, here amongst all the tarmac and concrete, are thirty hectares of vineyard. In the hands of anyone less determined, they too might have been swallowed up by the urban sprawl which now fills almost every metre between the city and the sea.

  ‘What interests you most about Flaugergues?’ asks Count Henri, as we head outside to the terrace dotted with citrus bushes. ‘Wine or culture?’

  I have not really thought about it. With neither of my ‘minders’ at my side – Manu being preoccupied with preparations for his own vendange and Krystina away for a few days, pampering herself at a health spa – life seems altogether less polarized.

  ‘Both, I suppose,’ I hesitate.

  ‘Good,’ he replies decisively. ‘For me they’re inseparable. The house was built for pleasure and it’s our aim to share that pleasure.’ He gives each of the statues of Peace and Plenty guarding the front door an affectionate pat on the head. ‘Did you see the sundial on your way in? You win a bottle of wine if you know the meaning of the motto: “Jam non tua” … No? It means “No longer yours”. Time, that is. As soon as you’ve looked at the clock, the moment’s passed. We have to make the most of every second, every good thing. So why don’t we taste some wine while we talk some more?’

  He leads me down through the lovingly restored geometry of the formal French garden, created, he explains, with ten thousand box trees gathered by the family on Sunday afternoons in the garrigue.

  ‘We finished the vendange yesterday,’ he says, as we reach the cave. ‘So the pressure’s very slightly off. Except, oh dear, I’ve a coachful from Denmark arriving. I might have to leave you to my oenologist. He’ll tell you how much better the wines could be, if I’d only spend money on air-conditioning for the cave. Well, maybe one day … But here’s a challenge.’ He pours me a glass of his ‘Cuvée Sommelière’. ‘Our best seller in Britain, this. But how many months in oak, would you say? A last chance to win the bottle of wine.’

  ‘Three?’ I suggest cautiously.

  ‘None at all.’ He smiles delightedly. ‘Just an exceptionally long fermentation. Fools a lot of experienced critics … But you’ll have to excuse me, they’re here,’ he apologizes, and I watch him gathering his party round the sundial’s motto and ebulliently offering that unclaimed bottle to any Danish Latin scholar who shares his own sense of how to get the most out of life.

  *

  I have not missed the last day after all. Yesterday’s Carignan was more plentiful than Virgile had thought and required more elimination of individual, sub-standard grapes. Another morning’s work remains.

  ‘We’re going to finish on the very day that we started last year,’ says Virgile delightedly. ‘My mother’s come up from Montpellier to make us a celebration lunch but goodness knows where we’ll have it. The flat’s far too small.’

  Anyone who has had the briefest involvement with the harvest appears to have been invited. An hour or so’s work and it seems you’re in, so a picnic would be best, if only the wind would die down. But none of Mme Joly’s exasperated appearances in the cave has succeeded in clarifying her son’s
plans for either venue or menu. He has other priorities.

  ‘A completely different fermentation technique,’ he promises, as he rinses one of the last two empty fibreglass tanks. ‘A macération carbonique. No more destemming.’ He gestures towards the detested, space-consuming érafloir, which is still outstaying its welcome. ‘Just whole, uncrushed bunches, piled on top of each other in the cuve. We can make a start with the leftover crates from yesterday. But first some DIY.’

  He winks as he carries a length of lightweight plastic tubing and a roll of sticky tape up to the top of the concrete vats.

  ‘We need to borrow some carbon dioxide,’ he explains, as he improvises a pipe to funnel the gas from the tank of Grenache across to the empty cuve. ‘Some people rely on the gas produced by the fermentation of the bottom bunches, as their skins start breaking under the weight of those above, but this is more effective. Either way, by surrounding the grapes with carbon dioxide, you deprive the yeasts of the oxygen they need for a traditional fermentation.’

  ‘So what happens instead?’ I ask, as I struggle to pass the first crate up to him at the top of the ladder that he has propped beside the cuve.

  ‘A yeast-free intra-cellular fermentation inside the grapes.’ He sees me looking puzzled. ‘The important thing to understand is the difference in the resulting wine – brighter-coloured and fruitier. It works particularly well for Carignan.’

  ‘Virgile, I’m going shopping,’ calls a maternal voice from the square outside. ‘You’ll have to trust me. A bientôt!’

  I clamber back over the obstacles for another crate. The back of the tiny cave has never seemed so depressingly far removed from the front, as I mentally multiply the distance between the van and the ladder by the quantity of crates remaining to be emptied. However, before these dispiriting calculations can be completed, in slouches Luc with a friend of his to ask what we’re up to.

  ‘Waiting for you two to help us,’ answers Virgile, as Luc and his equally exercise-averse sidekick find themselves unexpectedly conscripted into a human chain.

  With three pairs of arm muscles – even with Luc’s scrawny biceps reluctantly responsible for the final upward push – the task seems to take about a tenth of the time. We are almost congratulating ourselves on clearing the backlog when Virgile’s tractor rumbles up with a trailer which must contain easily twice the quantity that has just been emptied into the cuve. But at least we now have Arnaud’s limitless energies at our disposal – indeed, such is his whirlwind of energy that Luc and his friend are able to sacrifice the lunch invitation for which they have just qualified and slink away for a few days’ rest.

  The remainder of the picking gang returns in Gerard’s car with jubilant tales of celebratory grape fights. Gerard’s peeved expression and grape-stained shirt cannot, I feel, be unconnected with Margherita looking so spotlessly pleased with herself. Magda too seems suspiciously gratified by the spectacle of Florent’s stickily matted locks, requiring heaven knows how many hours of shampooing in the shower. They disappear to clean themselves up, leaving Arnaud and me to ferry the final crates into Virgile’s waiting arms.

  The morning harvest is almost too much for the cuve. Indeed, I wish more had been wasted in the grape fight, as Virgile clings to the top of the ladder, trying to juggle the final bunches into the last remaining cubic centimetres. But then, at last, the assembly of the macération carbonique, and with it the whole of the vendange, is finished.

  ‘The end!’ whispers Virgile, looking almost disbelievingly round at all the different fermentations that he has set in motion over the past few days: nine well-filled cuves and one deliberately left empty to allow for future rackings.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d have believed all this back in January,’ I tell him, genuinely humbled by the achievement.

  ‘Si tu veux, tu peux.’ He gives a modest shrug.

  ‘If you want, you can,’ I repeat to myself quietly, thinking there are worse philosophies than this.

  ‘But not quite the end,’ Virgile briskly returns to the fray. ‘It’s washing-up time, Arnaud.’

  He starts to strip to his boxer shorts, which seems an unnecessarily radical approach to the cleaning of the crates. But then he puts his ladder up against a cuve of Syrah and starts clambering into it. The high-pressure hosing is, as usual, Arnaud’s department. Virgile has what he calls a pigeage to do.

  ‘Excuse me, there are people over here trying not to be put off their food,’ calls Pius from Le Pressoir’s terrace, where Virgile’s semi-nudity is apparently visible through the ever-open doors.

  ‘Make the most of it. I’ll be charging a fee from next week,’ replies Virgile, before explaining to me what he is up to.

  The half-solid ‘cap’ of skins and pips needs to be submerged in the juice to stop it drying out. It also needs plenty of general agitation to extract maximum colour and flavour. Of course, many would achieve these things less picturesquely with a pole, he admits as he hauls his purple-stained body out of the Syrah and into the main tank of Cinsault and I utter a silent prayer that Manu falls into the latter, less folkloric category.

  ‘Let no one deny that he puts a lot of himself into his wine,’ quips Arnaud.

  ‘Old joke,’ puffs Virgile, clinging to the side, as far from the dreaded carbon dioxide fumes as possible. ‘You wouldn’t believe how hard this cap is,’ he adds, although I would in fact, because it almost supported his weight when he started.

  ‘Are you going to be long in there?’ asks a long-suffering Mme Joly, come to tell him that everyone else is ready and waiting.

  ‘We’re using Stéphane’s garden,’ says Virgile. ‘I phoned him while you were out. It’s the last on the right, as you leave the village. You take everyone down there and I’ll be along in a quarter of an hour.’

  Mme Joly frowns the frown of a mother who has experienced Virgile’s quarters of an hour before. ‘Well, don’t forget, you’re bringing the wine,’ she says, disappearing.

  I excuse myself for a shower and return to the cave to find Virgile on his third – and he promises me final – pigeage. ‘Just five minutes,’ he assures me unconvincingly, as I head on down to the picnic ground.

  ‘Incredible!’ I gasp at the sight of the abundant pastoral banquet with which Mme Joly is busy anchoring two large tablecloths on the windswept lawn.

  It seems inconceivable that she could have sliced all these tomatoes, beetroots and radishes in so little time – or grated all this carrot; or chopped all this fruit; or even managed to unwrap the profusion of pâtés, hams and cheeses that are jostling one another for space. And yet there is more: sausages and chicken pieces are already sizzling on a barbecue.

  ‘And all from that tiny kitchen!’ I marvel.

  She gives my compliment a modest shrug.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ I insist. ‘Just like Virgile’s miracles in his tiny cave.’

  ‘Si tu veux, tu peux.’ She smiles as she tosses an overflowing bowl of salad leaves. ‘But you think his wine’s all right?’ she adds, sincerely seeking reassurance.

  ‘All right?’ I laugh in disbelief.

  ‘I’ll take that as a “yes”,’ she says, returning her attention to the barbecue. ‘But you realize, he only got inside that cave a week before last year’s harvest? He was tending his vines all year, with nowhere to go. Then just at the last minute, he found this place. It took him all of the first week to get rid of the animal smells. “I’ll never be able to take my grapes in there,” he kept saying. But he managed.’

  ‘Si tu veux, tu peux,’ I echo, more impressed than ever.

  What Virgile has not managed, however, is his own arrival with the wine. The single bottle contributed by Florent has long since been drained and the pickers are growing restless, so I make an emergency sprint back to the cave.

  ‘It’s in the storeroom, under the stairs leading up to the flat,’ says Virgile, who has emerged from the cuve and is drying himself with a very red-stained towel. ‘The key’s on a hook over there by t
he fuse-box. I just need to shower and send a quick fax to the analysis laboratory. Then I’ll be there. Promise.’

  As he hurries out into the square with the towel round his waist, I notice a postcard sellotaped to the front of the fuse-box. It features a photograph of Che Guevara, overprinted with a catchphrase. ‘Soyons réalistes,’ it says. ‘Exigeons l’impossible!’ (Let’s be realistic – Demand the impossible!)

  It could be Virgile’s own motto, I reflect, as I take the key.

  *

  Five or six of the branches on the plum trees have snapped, which is hardly surprising. The weight must have been intolerable. Nature’s niggardliness with the cherries and apricots has been absurdly over-compensated by a plum crop of epic proportions. Even the insects, which appear to have systematically punctured almost every pear and apple in the orchard, have given the plum trees an inexplicably wide berth.

  Ludicrously, as soon as Virgile’s vendange was over, I compounded the problem by mounting an almost twenty-four-hour guard. Too late, the full enormity of the potential harvest has borne in on me and, just when a dawn raid from Manu would be the greatest blessing imaginable, Mme Gros has been refusing to accept anything more than the daintiest of punnets.

  ‘Please don’t worry about us,’ she bristled, with the deeply affronted air of one who would sooner see her husband drink himself to oblivion than allow him anywhere near my plums.

  I have been making enough jam to fill a market stall. I have bottled some of the fruit in alcohol for the winter and pickled more in vinegar. I have filled every spare centimetre of the freezer, given bulging carrier bags to anyone in the area who I thought would let me and even borrowed a prune-making machine from the Vargases. But still the trees are heavily laden.

  A hearty casserole in the shelter of the village café’s reinstated plastic windbreak has brought temporary cheer but no solutions. I am just beginning to wonder whether I should humble myself to beg for Manu’s intervention, when Babette arrives with an enormous slice of tart, heaped high with what are unmistakably the plums that she had from me.