Au Revoir to our Accountant
August 2nd 2008, by GQ
Yesterday I had the pleasant task of having to fire our accountant, who we’ve been with since buying the vineyard in 1999. On the way to his new office just off the Bordeaux ringroad, or rocade, I thought about what I was going to say, remembering from previous situations that the opening line is quite important.
My favourite is ‘I don’t know how we’re going to manage without you, but we’re going to give it a try’, which is quite a satisfying line to deliver but it’s a bit glib and disrespectful to the listener. On a different tack a few years ago, when we had to part company with a vineyard worker called Jacques, I had to resort to the only other area of common ground between us, which was football. ’Jacky’, I said, ‘I’ve given you the yellow card, and now, with regret (a touch of Sir Alan there), I’m afraid it’s the carte rouge‘. I thought of that conversation when Jacky and I bumped into each other again in the local supermarket last week. We talked about vines, and football.
Saint-Emilion Classification: a French Farce
July 6th 2008, by GQ
The long running saga concerning the re-classication of the top estates of St-Emilion took another twist this week when a court in Bordeaux ruled against the recently revised rankings. The whole affair has been widely reported, as in The Daily Telegraph, and by Sophie Kevany on decanter.com. Wikipedia’s current entry on this debacle is now right up-to-date and includes the useful, but now suspended, 2006 classification.
Ronnie Scissorhands
July 5th 2008, by GQ
Our new rogneuse arrived this week, complete with numerous spinning blades. New to us, that is, after one careful owner and just twelve months on the road, allegedly. It is immediately being put to good use, trimming the rows of vines after a team of mostly seasonal workers, or saisonniers, have lifted all the vines up through the training wires. Our old machine could just about cope but it’s seen better days, not least during our first full season in 2000 when we bought it brand new. (It should have lasted longer but the both the manufacturer and the distributor have closed down, so it’s tricky to get it fixed each time it goes wrong.) We still have the really old, lethal one that we inherited but we can’t show it here because the inspecteurs de travail would close us down if they knew we still had it. Even visitors to the vineyard exclaim ‘oh my god, what’s that?’ when they peer inside the tractor shed (all part of the longer, more exciting tour), but head boy Daniel is quite attached to it and, besides, he never throws anything away. I should get him on to eBay.
Using the rogneuse (pronounced ron-years, in case you wanted to point one out on your next vineyard tour in France) is a highly skilled job, carried out this week by Hafid while Daniel works on one of the other tractors. By far and away the most labour-intensive aspect though is the work by the saisonniers, lifting the branches of the vines up through the training wires, taking care not to damage the newly formed bunches at knee level.
New AOC Rules: Forgive me for yawning
June 17th 2008, by GQ
There are significant changes afoot with new rules surrounding the Appellation Contrôlée system. From the 1st July it’s all change: previous controls about guaranteeing the authenticity of a wine from Bordeaux are being replaced by, er, a brand new set of controls. The changes are for the good, just like stopping drink-driving is for the good, but we’ll have to wait and see just how well the whole scheme is implemented and policed.
I was invited to what I thought was going to be a routine meeting this afternoon, between a few fellow vignerons and a Directeur from the Syndicat de Bordeaux. I realised when I walked in to the Salle André Lurton in Grézillac that the session might go on for a bit longer than I had anticipated, as there were 200 people in the room and more arriving. There was a choice of standing room only at the back, or a seat in the front row, and I realised my mistake in opting for the latter when the main presenter gave everyone a peep at just how many Powerpoint slides he was about to share with us all as he set up his laptop with the overhead projector. There was to be no escape.