This year I had the impression that the seasons had nudged forward by a month. Spring began during March and although I had the logs crackling on the fire in the evening, the days were often bright and perfect for hiking which I did a lot of. However, during winter we had seen a lot of rain, some of it torrential and the little river at the bottom of my garden was deep and fast flowing as spring arrived. The vines started to wake from their winter sleep in early April and the spring sunshine and warmer than normal temperatures soon had them sporting their tufts of greenery like ribbons twisted into little bows. Flowering began just as it should and the little green flowers soon turned to baby grapes and by the end of May we had what looked like bunches of ‘petit pois’ beginning their short journey of around 100 days to become sweet juicy grapes.
Peter and Deborah Core made a life-changing move when they quit their jobs in London and headed to New Zealand to learn how to become wine makers. Deborah was a lawyer and Peter an accountant so their new chosen path was one that took them in an entirely different direction and one they have no regrets taking.
The Vin en Vacances team is growing, we now number 6 wine crazy people and last weekend 4 of us headed for Montpellier and the organic wine show Millesime Bio. To make sure of an early start we decided to stay the previous night so where could a team of food & wine nuts head for dinner? Kate had the answer and I’ll let her tell the story…