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The Vignerons Independants (independent wine makers) of the Vins de Pays des Cotes de Gascogne hold their annual wine festival in the town of Eauze (32 Gers, Midi-Pyrenees) on 26 July 2008. More than 50 winemakers will be offering tastings. The Cotes de Gascogne is best known for making light fruity whites wines (90% of the production), typically from Colombard or Ugni Blanc grapes, but there are also some good Sauvignon Blancs and Gros Manseng.

However, many winemakers will also produce Armagnac and Floc de Gascogne which are also based on Colombard and Ugni Blanc grapes. Floc de Gascogne is a blend of unfermented grape juice and Armagnac which served chilled is a refreshing aperitif, available in white and rose styles.

The elegant city of Montauban gets its streets filled with Jazz for its 5 week long Fesitval de Jazz from 3 July to 9 August 2008 – and there will be other attractions such as the opportunity to taste the wines of the Cotes de Brulhois AC which come from just south of Agen (47 Lot-et-Garonne, Aquitaine) and are red wines based on Tannat, Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet and Fer Servadou grapes – a potentially rustic blend which can produce some seriously good reds.

Duck, Goose, Foie Gras, Cassoulet, Madiran, Armagnac and all the other good rich produce of the land feature in Martin Calder’s book A Summer in Gascony: Discovering the Other South of France which offers a good summer read if you are interested in absorbing a bit of “la France profonde”.
This is the story of a student summer working in Gascony a few years ago, based at the isolated Auberge in Peguilhan (31 Haut-Garonne, Midi-Pyrenees)in the Comminges area of Gascony. Staying several months on a working farm and auberge gives a different and well-informed and affectionate view of the land, its people and traditions. I suspect many of us head south to try to capture just a glimpse of the essence of a place where people and nature seem to have found a natural harmony, enriched by the bounteous harvest of its farmers and winemakers. In between the story of the summer’s work and play Martin Calder offers you a wealth of snippets of information, whether it be about the wine (and Armagnac), the history (and the links between the Gascons and the British), the fiercely independent Gascon character (decidedly not French!), the Gascon beret and tradtional cooking. It is perhaps the sense of being distant from the pressures of modern city life which pervades the region - the rhythms of the seasons and the weather. I suspect that much has changed at the auberge since his days at Peguilhan (as suggested in his epilogue), but Gascony still has many quiet hidden corners; the people remain as down-to-earth and welcoming, the food, wine and Armagnac as good as ever.
A Summer in Gascony: Discovering the Other South of France

From 26 to 29 June 2008 , a “wine road” will run along the Garonne river from the historic city centre of Bordeaux through the heart of the Bordeaux region’s vineyards, with wine and local food tastings, son-et-lumiere, music and firework displays.

A €13.00 euro (£11) wine pass will buy you 12 wine tastings, while a €70 euro (£58) pass will cover access to nine tasting routes through the region’s vineyards, spread over the four days. So you can choose between St Emilion, the Medoc, Sauternes and Graves, Entre-Deux-Mers PLUS trips to explore the wines of BERGERAC and COTES DE DURAS.
Within the city there will be plenty of opportunities to celebrate, taste and learn. Discover the nuances of the region and the wide range of wines, styles and prices which are on offer. It’s not all finest vintage, wallet-busting stuff, but some really good value interesting wines.

Amongst the other attractions (beyond the City itself with its rich history and cultural heritage) there will be barrel-rolling competition, numerous parades by different wine guilds, music, dancing, a food and wine village - every day there will be racing on the river with some of the old boats which used to bring the wine into Bordeaux and up the Gironde and onto ocean-going ships for export; and a competition to swin across the Gironde - definitiely not recommended if you have been imbibing!

For more info see www.bordeaux-fete-le-vin.com

You can book direct with Rail Europe for Eurostar and TGV tickets from London to Bordeaux

Jancis Robinson in the Financial Times (12 May 08) talks about the growing number of Brits who have followed their dream and bought a vineyard in France.

It is hardly surprising then that a substantial proportion of the hundreds of thousands of Brits who own French property have been tempted by the apparently bucolic life of a vigneron……
Are there any French winemakers left down there?
I asked Walter McKinlay, whose Domaine de Mourchon southern Rhône wines are some of the most successful from a British domaine, whether his Domaine de Mourchon wines were financially viable. He frowned. “Just about,” he said cautiously, then smiled. “But it’s a lovely lifestyle though.”

My own observation would be that it can be incredibly hard work and despite the attractions of the climate, landscape and the French way of life, it can also be very stressful. And as with all winemakers, a bad harvest, particularly in the early years can be devastating.

So, here’s our list of British vineyard owners (and 1 Irish couple) - that we are aware of (not an exhaustive list I am sure). Visits can be much more informative if the language is no barrier:-

Domaine de Laroux - Cotes de Gascogne, Armagnac (32 Gers, Midi-Pyrenees) - Nick and Karen Kitchener
Chateau Haut Garrigue - Bergerac, Saussignac AC (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) - Sean and Caroline Feely (the Irish couple running an organic vineyard also known as Wild Earth Vineyards)
Domaine de Fontenay - Cote Roannaise AC (42 Loire, Rhone-Alpes) - Simon and Isabelle Hawkins

Chateau Richard - Bergerac, Saussignac AC (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) - Richard Doughty

Domaine de Merchien - Coteaux du Quercy and beer! (46 Lot, Midi-Pyrenees - David & Sarah Meakin

Clos d’Yvigne - Cotes de Bergeac, Saussignac AC (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) - Patricia Atkinson

Chateau des Milles Anges - Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, Cadillac AC (33 Gironde, Aquitaine) - Heather van Ekris

Chateau Lezongars - Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux, Bordeaux AC (33 Gironde, Aquitaine) - Philip and Sarah Iles

Chateau Teyssier - Saint Emilion Grand Cru AC (33 Gironde, Aquitaine) - Jonathan and Lyn Maltus

Chateau de Sours - Bordeaux AC (33 Gironde, Aquitaine) - Esme & Sara Johnson

Domaine Gourdon - Cotes de Duras AC (47 Lot-et-Garonne, Aquitaine) - John Coulthard
Domaine du Grand Mayne - Cotes de Duras AC (47 Lot-et-Garonne, Aquitaine) - Andrew Gordon
Domaine de Begude - Limoux AC (11 Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon) - Catherine and James Kinglake
Domaine de Mourchon - Cotes du Rhone Seguret AC (84 Vaucluse, Provence) - Walter McKinley
Maison des Bulliats - Regnie AC Beaujolais (69 Rhone, Rhone-Alpes) - Fred and Helen Lockwood
Chateau Méaume - Bordeaux Superieure AC (33 Gironde, Aquitaine) - Alan and Sue Johnson-Hill

Domaine a Sauvageonne - Coteaux du Languedoc AC, Vin de Pays d’Oc (34 Herault, Languedoc - Roussillon) - Gavin Crisfield

Domaine Sainte Rose - Vin de Pays d’Oc (34 Herault, Languedoc-Roussillon) - Charles and Ruth Simpson

Chateau Bauduc - Bordeaux AC (33 Gironde, Aquitaine) - Gavin and Angela Quinney

Domaine Sainte Croix - Corbieres AC (11 Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon) - Jon & Elizabeth Bowen

Chateau Monplaisir - Bergerac AC (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) - David and Helen Baxter

The Saussignac appellation in the western part of the Bergerac vineyard (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) seems to be pioneering organic (bio) vineyards - interesting for an appellation which has only recently been revitalised. Saussignac wines are sweet dessert wines made from Semillon grapes subject to botrytis “noble rot”.

However on 8 May 2008 you could indulge in a full day ramble of about 5 miles around the 5 organic vIneyards with the opportunity to taste on the way! Take a picnic lunch and it could be a wonderful day - accompanied by winemakers and finishing at Chateau Haut-Garrigue aka Wild Earth Vineyards run by an Irish couple, Sean and Caroline Feely:-

Saussignac Dessert Wine Seduction 2006 The saussignac botrytis dessert wine is truly a labour of love. The yield from a hectare of Saussignac is about 25% of the yield the same hectare would deliver of dry white. Unfortunately the price is never 4 times but fools like us continue to make it because it is truly exquisite. The grapes are hand-picked (sometimes individually) and deliver up a juice that is golden and heavenly. Once fermented a complex set of aromas develop… I’ll let our tasters give us an inkling of the future… Tasting Notes June 2007: Golden and unctuous. Honey, passion fruit and a hint of almond on the nose. Notes of honeysuckle and orange blossom. Apricot and passion fruit the palate with an intense, long finish. Our tasters also wrote ‘Outstanding’ & ‘this is a €100 a bottle wine’

For more info on the walk see www.hautgarrigue.com

Regular readers will be aware the the Lot Valley in the South West of France features frequently in these pages - in many ways the essence of “deepest France”, it is less crowded than the Dordogne to the north and yet offers a wide variety of landscapes, pretty villages, great cuisine - and is home to the often under-rated Malbec-based wines of Cahors. Hence an essential recent purchase has been the revised edition of Helen Martin’s Book Lot: Travels Through a Limestone Landscape in SouthWest France, which is packed with insights, history and information on the Lot département (46) as part of the River’s journey from the Massif Central to its meeting with the Garonne near Aiguillon (47 Lot-et-Garonne, Aquitaine).

Helen has kindly allowed us to print an extract of the section on Cahors and its wines…….
Lot: Travels Through a Limestone Landscape in SouthWest France

Chapter 8 The Lot Valley: West of Cahors
Below Cahors, the valley of the Lot belongs to the vignerons and the vineyards of the black wine of Cahors, châteaux-country in fact, but in times gone by it also belonged to the bishops of Cahors, who worked and played but mostly – in that great Christian tradition – fought along its banks.
Downstream of Luzech, the really wild cliffs you see to the east of Cahors become a thing of the past, replaced by gentler, graceful slopes, albeit with a certain grandeur to them, that, even though they may end in cliffs, are less formidable and are called cévennes. The river idles its way through the countryside in deep loops, or cingles, and was used as a major artery for transporting goods from the thirteenth century.
Along its banks grow the vines, and it was mostly the wine from these vineyards which used to be sailed downstream to the Garonne and Bordeaux and from thence to the world. The wine of Cahors may have had its ups and down in more recent times, but the Romans were making wine here in the third century and it had something of a reputation even then, so this river trade is very ancient. Finally, though, and in spite of the efforts of competitive Bordeaux wine-makers, it was phylloxera which put paid to the wine, and thus the trade, in the 1880s. By the time it had revived again, there were better means of transport. But even when the river was at the height of its usefulness, transportation was not always guaranteed. You would be surprised to know how many times the Lot froze right over in winter; the end of the eighteenth century was a particularly critical time – in 1766 it was frozen solid for two and a half months.
In the early nineteenth century, on a river much improved with the passage of time by locks and aids to navigation, 300,000 tonnes of freight was carried down it each year, including an astonishing 90 million bottles of wine – three times the number produced today. However, just as it was phylloxera that killed the river’s wine trade, so it was the coming of the railway that killed the river as a serious form of transport. In more recent years, though, it is coming to life again as leisure craft ply their way up and down, no doubt bringing new problems of pollution.
The villages along this western stretch of the river, unsurprisingly enough, are notable for their wine-producers’ houses – usually big and square with bolets or pigeonniers and sometimes both. You will notice, also, the use of decorative brickwork, the bricks being produced along the valley. Read more on this…

Albas (46 Lot, Midi-Pyrenees) holds its annual Fete du Vin de Cahors on Saturday 3 May 2008 - situated in the heart of the Cahors vineyard to the west of Cahors, the day goes under the banner of “open our cellars to the fresh air!” - another celebration of the arrival of Spring and the start of the growth of the vine for another vintage.

The day includes open tastings, music, a banquet and other attractions such as a barrel-maker (tonnelier) - and amongst the wines will be Impernal, Prieuré de Cénac, Château d’Anglars, Château Beauvillain-Monpezat, Château Carrigou, Château Eugénie, Château Leret-Monpezat, Clos Triguedina and Domaine la Borie.

If you can tear yourself away from the festivities in the town, it is worth taking a trip to the “Point-de-Vue” on the hill above the village for a spectacular view of the river Lot and its vineyards. Take the D37 south west from th village and follow the signs.

The Observer (27 April 08) features a visit to Chateau Lagrezette in Cahors (46 Lot, Midi-Pyrenees), owned and restored by Alain Dominique Perrin, a controversial figure in the Cahors wine community, who was the key figure in Cartier’ luxury goods empire.

His vigorous approach to marketing and the production of high value wines has not always been popular with traditionalists in the area, who fear that whilst he may be promoting the name of Cahors, his wines tend to be too commercial and distant from the traditional character of the appellation. Certainly other winemakers are making extraordinarily good top quality wines, whilst still retaining distinctive Cahors character.There is also the inevitable local suspicion about a wealthy incomer in what has been one of the poorest départements in France.

Lunch in the farmhouse kitchen is nowhere near as terrifyingly chic as I’d feared. Instead, his son Clement, a 27-year-old musician, and his winery manager, Jean Courtois, sit with him at a long wooden table in front of an open fire and eat ratatouille made with vegetables from the kitchen garden, herbed chicken with braised endive, goats’ cheese from Rocamadour and an amazing tarte tatin, all prepared by housekeeper Nadia, while Perrin explains how he restored his vineyards.

Lagrézette’s vineyards are some of the oldest in France and there are references to them from the 1500s. But they were decimated in the last century by the vine disease phylloxera and then by flooding in the 1950s. At the request of the locals, who had seen and approved of Perrin’s work on the château, he set about bringing them back, ripping out the unimpressive hybrids that had replaced the original diseased Malbec plants, replacing them with new Malbecs on three-quarters of the estate and Merlot and Tannat grapes everywhere else. He brought in renowned wine expert Michel Rolland to help in 1989, but remained closely involved himself.

‘Monsieur Perrin,’ says Courtois, ‘is above all interested in… quality. Quality is the most important thing to him in all things.’

The château’s winery was built from scratch, although it incorporates some original pieces, like the enormous wooden door, which dates from before the French Revolution, and a large stone fountain picked up in Toulouse. Having decided it should be built underground, Perrin had the hillside dug out, built the cellars and the workrooms, and then replaced the soil on top, no small feat considering the winery is 55m long and 19m deep. Now all that is visible from outside is the winery’s beautiful fascia. The final touch was a 150m tunnel connecting the winery with the château.

At the end of the tunnel you find yourself in a tasting room, formerly one of the château’s cells. ‘This is where Monsieur Rolland comes to blind-taste each vintage,’ explains Courtois. ‘It is also haunted, like most of the castle.’ In the course of the restoration, Perrin made a macabre discovery: the ruins of an oubliette, a dungeon that opened only from the top, into which people were thrown, literally to be forgotten. It contained human and animal bones that Perrin had analysed. ‘The theory is that it was probably closed up in the 18th century, and erased from the records because it was a source of such shame.’ Perrin claims that the circular bedroom at the top of the south tower, where his friends Tina Turner, Elton John, Richard Gere, Cindy Crawford and Tony Blair stay when they drop in for a weekend, is also subject to visitations from former inhabitants.

The Chateau has a nicely designed and informative website and blog - see www.chateau-lagrezette.tm.fr

Whilst the wines of Lagrezette are undoubtedly of high quality, personally I would prefer the wines of Chateau du Cedre or Chateau Eugenie.

Chateau Lagrezette Cahors AC is available from www.bertrandandnicholaswines.co.uk amongst others.

See our customised Google Map of the Lot and Cahors

Amongst the wealth of good organic produce at the London Real Food Festival (24-27 April 08) several French wine producers will be in attendance offering tastings of their organic wines.
This includes Domaines Schlumberger from Alsace,the Irish-owned Chateau Haut Garrigue (or Wild Earth Vineyards) from Bergerac (South West France) and from the Languedoc Les Clos Perdus.

Les Clos Perdus is a small winery founded by Paul Old and Hugo Stewart based in the village of Peyriac de Mer (11 Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon) in the Languedoc region of the South of France.

The name Les Clos Perdus (Lost Vineyards) reflects our discovery of select parcels of old vines, scattered throughout the hillsides. Many of our small vineyards had been disregarded by larger producers because of their isolation, their low cropping potential and their inability to be machine worked.
The selection of grape varieties on particular soils, in differing locations gives the wine the complexities we are looking for.
Our aim is to produce distinctive well balanced wines of the highest quality.

They certainly seem to have hit the mark with recommendations from the likes of Jancis Robinson and listing at Gordon Ramsay at Claridges and the Club Gascon in London.
Interestingly they also list a rare white wine made from the Terret grape - (although currently sold out)
For more info on Les Clos Perdus see www.lesclosperdus.com
For more info on the Real Food Festival see www.realfoodfestival.co.uk/