HARVEST has begun !!

Late last week we started pulling grapes in from the vineyard. We started with the cinsault - about 3 tons. That took most of Thursday morning. Friday we continued with the grenache from the vines along-side the cinsault. We brought in about 4 tons. The rose will be a combo of the two - to be blended after fermentation is complete (each 'wine' will be fermented seperately). Looks like we'll get about 1500 bottles again this year.

Had planned to continue the harvest the end of this week - Thurs / Fri - but we got RAIN last night and this morning, so we will delay until the first of next week. But, longer hang-time on the vine is better for the maturity of the grapes, and the rain will keep the sugar levels under control. We'll keep testing and tasting the grapes in the vineyard and make the final "Pick" decision later in the week.

Great weekend in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Spent all day Saturday and Sunday with a booth in the middle of the town, along with about 20 other wineries.

With my neighbors' son helping (fluent in French, English, German and Belgian (the twirp), he was a great help to me when I would get stuck with my less-than-perfect French.

Lots of people, lots of sun, and we poured and sold lots of wine. Interestingly, the 2008 Red was more popular than the 2009. I think because it is a little more fruit-forward, and of course a year older, it was more appealing in the hot sun. Of course, the rose went over very well -clean and crisp - but we seemed to get as many repeat tasters (can you say 'free aperitif') as buyers!!

In addition to the sales, I was able to increase awareness of the domaine (lots of people took brochures and cards) and I made a few good contacts for future business, which is part of why I went. SO, all in all, a very successful outing!

VERAISON has arrived - grape color is changing. Things are starting to ripen. And we FIANALLY GOT RAIN !!! After 6 weeks without, we got a dump last night - vines are VERY happy !!!

This coming weekend is the "Fete de la Versaion" in
Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Its their annual (26th) celebration of the founding of the village and its ties both to the church and to wine. Lots of costumes (knights, damsels) parades, food and wine. And a medeival banquet with jousting and swordfights, and all. Quite the deal. I have booth on the main street and will be pouring and selling my 2008 and 2009 red as well as my 2009 rose. Wish me luck !!

A bientot.

The grapes, the grapes..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here it is the latter part of July, and the fruit is set...and even a few are starting to change color.
In Chateauneuf-du-Pape in early August they have a festival to celebrate 'Veraison' - which is the changing of the color in the 'raisins'....as you can see it has started. Looks like it will be a good harvest this year!

On another note - - - the rose wine has arrived in Seattle, and should be available next week at local wine shops!!!! So get your orders in now, 'cause when its gone....its gone !!!!

Hi to All

Did the Open House thing again - this time for the 2009 red wine, last Saturday. It didn't generate a great turn-out, but it wasn't a complete waste of time. Even though I only had about 15-18 people stop by I sold about 20 boxes of wine - so worth the effort. Though I suspect i need to re-think the advertising of it. The direct mail to questionable clients (left over from Julien) wasn't the lure I had hoped for.

In the vineyard, things are going great. We've had good weather for the last month (its in the 85-90 range again this week, for the third week straight..with more to follow. Haven't seen any rain in the last month. So, I've been out plowing between rows of vines, and watering the new plants. With it being so hot...and me being 'retired'..I find myself working for a couple of hours in the morning (9-12) and then a couple of hours in the late afternoon (4-7). Seems to be working so far.

That schedule does, however, interfere with my Driving License schooling. I have not been back to the class in a month or so, so I am way behind. Will try to pick that up again next week. I was just about to the point of being ready for the written exam...and now I've lost momentum...work work work......its always something!!!

On the WINE side, the latest is that I did get about 2500 bottles of the 2009 Cotes du Rhone red into bottles - no issues with the OIVR (the administration) over the quality this time - passed with flying colors!` So, with the Open House, I have that for sale here at the domaine. I have begun to send samples out to people to try...so I can generate some interest....we'll see?!?!!?

The 2009 rose is still selling, slowly, here. The pallet I sent to Nobvle Wines is due to arrive in about 2 weeks - I will be sending out a notice in the "E-Newletter" as that gets closer...so wath for that !!

The 2008 red continues to not sell here, so I have set that aside for now and I am focusing on the 2009. In Seattle, Noble still has some 2008 left...SOOoooo

Remember - ALL I ASK IS A BOTTLE A WEEK !!!

We need to make room for the 2009, by getting the 2008 out the door, so keep up the good work!!!!! I am hopeful that Noble will order some of the 2009 red (sent them samples to try)...but they are more likely if there cupboard is bare................

Other than that things are good. The Tour de France comes close-by again this year - next week - so I plan to go see it (I went and saw a stage (time trial) of the Duphine Libere last month here in Sorgues) - boy those guys really scoot. Not like me on my way to market!!!

Y'all be good out there.

Bonjour to All

Its been just about a year since my very good friends Terry and Kathryn came to visit. in honor of that, and to give you an idea of what I am up to in the vineyard this week/month, I am turning the Blog over to my "Guest Blogger" - Kathryn...ENJOY !!!

"In 2009 Terry and I decided it was time to spend some months in France assisting Doug in the Mas de la Lionne's vineyards during June and July; returning in September to help with the harvest. We left an unseasonably sunny Pacific Northwest on June 10th to be picked up in Avignon by Doug in his cute white Renault Kangoo sedan van.

We quickly fell into a pattern of arising at 7 AM and after coffee, cereal and bananas going into the vineyards to trim vines while Doug sprayed the weeds (who exhibited a liking for the terroir compatible to the vines). After a couple of hours in the sun, which made us sweat as if we were pedaling in Le Tour de France, we would take a break, ultimately returning to the fields and working until approximately noon.

Anything after noonish was difficult because of the heat. The attached pictures show one of many of Doug's tractors (can you say manly?) and Doug and Terry in the vineyard. Note the spraying tank on Doug’s back so the spray gets the weeds not the grapes

.Lunch was either taken at small restaurants located in Chateauneuf du Pape, a 5 minute drive from Mas de la Lionne, or on the patio of Mas de la Lionne. The attached picture represents one of our repasts, which all seemed to feature cheese, tomatoes, thinly sliced meats, melon and Mas de la Lionne rosé wine.

Afternoons were a leisurely affair, with the boys watching sports on the television and me reading or walking the roads. Always looking for sunflower fields, one day I hit the mother lode and must have taken three million photos, none of which were particularly good, of a multitude of flower fields near the house.

Sundays and days the mistral was blowing enough that work in the field was prohibited, were for markets and traveling to quaint French provencal towns. One big exception was on Monday, July 6th, when a stage of Le Tour was breezing

through Les Beaux (look it up on the Internet...very cool hilltop town which is a tourist "must").

Le Tour is like Mardi Gras without the boobs, and even has a parade that leads the route several hours in advance of the cyclists. The floats throw candy and hats and all sorts of stupid memorabilia to the crowd lining the roads. The attached picture shows the pelaton whizzing by at mach 9.....I still wonder if Armstrong (Lance not Neil) is in the picture somewhere.

We also helped with labeling the 2008 Cote du Rhone, which I hope you are enjoying as you read this article, although article might be a too fancy word for my musings. Nonetheless, it was fun to pit ourselves against the machinery in true Lucille and Ethel fashion and the result is the attached photo.

All too soon our time to leave caught up with us, although a highlight, before our flight home, was celebrating Bastille Day in Paris We left France planning to return to help Doug with the harvest, which he assured us always falls within a specific number of days in September.

Remember how great last year's spring and summer was in the Pacific Northwest? Well that weather was present in Provence as well. The upshot was the brix [sugar] count of the grapes got high enough that Doug decided to pick the week before we arrived. We still were able to see a lot of grapes being harvested when we returned but we did not have to perform any "plucking" motions ourselves. The attached picture shows some grapes from another field close to Mas de la Lionne, which represents what the grapes look like when they are going to be harvested.

What we did get to do was help Doug in the winery. Since the tanks are very tall and hard to exit via the small door very high on the tanks' front, Terry (who is 6 feet tall) was selected to climb into the vats and shovel out the stems and grapes and various residuals that are left after the juice is drained. There is a lot of alcohol in the air so a table fan was jerry-rigged by the guys (no OSHA in France) so Terry would not pass out.

Doug meanwhile ran around moving equipment and making me wonder how he could ever do all that is required by himself. The pictures show Terry in a stainless steel tank squatting on the material he will be shoveling and Doug cleaning a piece of equipment.

All too soon our time with Doug at Mas de la Lionne came to an end, but we have wonderful memories, good pictures and some great wine to remember the experience."

Hi ALL

Its been a little while, I know...I really am not being very good about posting, am I ?!?!

I think mostly its because this time of year it is pretty quiet around here (...boring..?) and there's not much to pass along.

The winter, since the holidays, has been fairly cold and wet...we got about 12 inches of snow here and about 20 inches in Chateauneuf in early January....A RECORD for around here.

My friend Jean Marie tells me that his father-in-law, who has lived herre all his life, had not seen snow like that since 1956! (Jean Marie had never seen so much here at one time). Needless to say, the community was snowbound for about a week. I had to use the tractor to make a path for me to get the car out of the driveway (and had to shovel a bunch to make clearance for the gate to swing open and shut). When the 'plow' came down the road, of course it left me with a nice pile of snow across the entrance to the drive - so I used the tractor to break it all up and smash it down. Helped out the neighbors with their driveway as well.

Since then, it has been off and on rain and clear...but generally cool (30's and 40's). So that has made it a little difficult to finish the work in the vineyard (pulling up dead vines to make way for replanting). Its hard on the vineyard to run the heavy tractor between the rows when it is really wet - they compact the soil. I DID get all the trimmings 'raked' up and burned, so any left-over mildew on the trimmed branches will not infect the vineyard.

And then - today - we got another round of snow!!! For crying out loud its MARCH...its PROVENCE !!..its THE SOUTH of France.!!!!

The forecast calls for cold weather for the next couple of days, so I'm sure the snow won't go away 'till the end of the week. Oh well...at least its real pretty !! And I have lots of books and DVD's to keep me occupied in the house (thank you Amazon.com.UK).

For those of you on my e-mail list, you will know that the second shipment of the 2008 red reached Seattle in late January. I got a report this week that the wine is still selling nicely - they have sold about 1/2 the shipment (which was twice the size of the first one) in the first 5 weeks!!! So you are all doing the job I asked you to do!! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK !!!!
Remember: ALL I ASK IS A BOTTLE A WEEK!!!!

Also, it looks like we will be bringing the 2009 ROSE into Seattle in the Spring - I am hoping to receive a Purchase Order from Noble in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the wine will arrive in time for the BREAST CANCER CLIMB DINNER at BRASA! Watch for more news on that soon.

On a personal note, I am continuing to work on getting a French drivers license (Permit de Conduire). It is REALLY TOUGH!! The written portion is very difficult - you must answer 36 out of 40 questions corfrectly, and the questions may have multiple correct answers. Taken together with the fact that it is all in French, and my language skills are good but not perfect.....I have been struggling to get over the 30 correct hurdle....quelle dommage.....SO I go to the 'Auto Ecole' every evening for about 1 hour and study. Of course there are NO English speakers around to help..so it is a bit frustrating.....oh well...c'est la vie en france. I'll just keep sluggin away at it.

Other than that, things are good. Looking forward to Spring and Summer - warm weather, sun, exploring, vineyard work, clients for the wine........and VISITORS!?!?!?!

Be well out there.

Ciao