The snow at merchien!

Merry christmas!

This is the snow at the domain du Merchien on boxing day . Just 3 month ago it was harvest, hard to imagine the change in such a short space of time?? It just gives those of you that visit us in the summer and ask the question whats it like in the winter a taster. We will try and show you the work over the winter period both in the field and the chai to show you a year in a vineyard!!

Just had to show off my first ever cooked HAM!!!
Wiltshire ham can not beet it!! there says a wiltshire lass

Cork not plastic

Forest In A Bottle = Natural World BBC2 8:00pm

As most of you know we only use cork for our bottles and hopefully always will. Our motto is supporting the natural Cork forest of the World and not the petrol chemical industry.

If we do not support the cork producers the forest will die!! cork is renewable .

Please consider this when drinking a bottle of wine with a plastic stopper or screw cap.

David has been saying it for years, use CORK maybe now it will become fashionable and we will all benefit.

Maybe Domaine du Merchien with our little bit of eco-ness will also become fashionable.

Please watch the program if poss. and give us your thought on our BLOG http://merchienwineandbeer.blogspot.com/

David and Sarah
www.merchien.com

Loading the pressed grapes into trailer for the distillery.
After the pressing of the fermented grapes we have to keep all the pressed grape skins and send to a distillery to be made into industrial alcohol, this is a sort of tax we have to pay(yet another one) if we do not arrange for the "marc" to be sent than the customs have a right to come and take finished wine.

This marc is also used to make 'eau de vie' slightly different way of distilling to give a hint of fruit but still very alcholic. In 2001 we sent some marc off to a man in the village to make us some , we still have loads left very good to keep a cold away!! the locals say a tot aday keeps a cold away.

What a Night.............. Wake me in the morning!!

This is MER - CHIEN (aka Patapouf)

Ready for a night out!!!

Watch this space for the morning after!!

YET MORE GOOD NEWS FOR OUR AWARD WINNING WINES

Not content with our yet to be released VAT 665 being nominated for Guide Hachette 2009, our Cabernet Franc 2005 has made it to No 1 too.

Wine Report 2009 (Tom Stevenson) has placed the Cabernet Franc 2005 as the Best Bargain in the South West France section. This is the second time we have appeared in the Wine Report, the last time was in 2005 where we then got Best Bargain and Top 100 most Exciting Wine Finds.

The Guide Hachette award was a real surprise too. As we hadn’t actually bottled the VAT 665 when the closing date was approaching, we debated whether we should enter or not as in reality, with no bottle age, the finished product would be far from ready but we knew it had definite potential as it was going to be as good as the 2004 which had been nominated in 2007.

In the end we succumbed, quickly bottled half a case and sent it off, hoping that they would see its potential, which we knew it had. You could have knocked us over with a feather then a large buff envelope plonked itself down on our doormat and David got the surprise of his life when he opened it

Quercy brewery news

Quercy brewery news


David and Sarah will be brewing again shortly, so hard to keep up with the demand!!

Making sure it is in the right place

Pushing the cage into position

Pressing under way

A better view of the press

The cage being pressed

The cage now filled with grapes ready for pressing

Can you see the door to the cuve

De-Cuving raking out the fermented grapes to the press

Autumn Colours with view to Puylaroque

Autumn colours

Early Autumn,leaves falling,Decuving.

Harvesting by machine,1 hectare in less than 1 hour,machine emptying into trailer.

TRADITIONALLY MADE, AS NATURE INTENDED.
The ladies of Club Brive tread the grapes.

On a lovely sunny day, the ladies of Club Brive arrived at the Domaine du Merchien to handpick the grapes and then get their feet stuck into making some wine. It was a multi-nation event with England, Wales, South Africa, Ireland, France and Argentina all represented.

They knew nothing about how wine was made, and the process in the fields and in our chai. So whilst we picked we told them how it was done and then before lunch, we showed them the chai and grapes we had picked a few weeks before fermenting away in the cuves alongside grapes from the previous two years which will be bottled in 2009/2010. Then we loaded up the presses with the grapes they had picked and they all climbed in. They loved it; jumping up and down the juices soon began to flow as they crushed the grapes to a pulp.

Our lasting memory of the day:- one lady, who will remain nameless, was nearly banished for admitting she only ever drank red wine with cola! We soon changed that over a long lunch as they sampled the 2006 vintage, which was picked in 2005 and had just been bottled a few weeks before.

Jo Popham wife Alix Popham (Wales); Uhlandi Vosloo wife Gerhard Vosloo (South Africa) plus daughter Lara; Nathalie Estabanez wife Fabrice Estabanez (France); Fanny Jeuvrey girfirend Arnaud Pic (France); Lisa Thomas girlfriend Barry Davies (Wales); Roxy Nel girlfriend Scott Spedding (South Africa); Mirium Short wife Christian Short (Ireland); Victoria Henn wife Pablo Henn (Argentina

THE VENDANGE IS SUPER

Harvset has gone well todate,with warm days and cool nights, grapes have good sugar levels and loads of juice. All that is left to pick is the cabernet franc which will be picked by the W.A.G.S of Brive rugby club this Sunday comming, 12th of October, who all would like to experience the pleasure of hand picking at Domaine Du Merchien. They also intend to press the grapes the old fashioned way for a promotional shot for the club, so watch this space for the photos, it should all be good fun??
On a more serious note we have once again been selected for the guide Hachette 2009 with our 2006 blend VAT665 which will be released in 2009 so watch this space for details.

Summer Truffles

Found by Zachary and Sophie -Tor, he will not tell us where!!!



We are now hoping they will find winter truffles, as the price is much higher! If you want some let us know.

SPRAYING THE VINES

Penultimate spraying was applied on the 2nd August in fine dry hot conditions. A small amount of mildew was present in the back field of Cabernet Franc, otherwise, the grapes look good and are starting to change colour, in french "veraison ".

The cannons , the spray nozzles on the back of the tractor, are operated from the tractor cab and thus reduce the time stopping to change the direction and mean no spray is wasted or miss directed.

1995 Vintage

A funny thing happened at market on Sunday, Sarah had a French customer come and asked her if she had any 1995 for sale ,she hadn’t, the 1995 had sold out very quickly in less than 8 months! The French man had just had a bottle and said it was absolutely fantastic!
So not having tried a bottle for many years mainly because I’d lost the key to our wine cage!!! Anyway I found the key and with some partners in wine who happened to be here for dinner had the pleasure of trying it! What a surprise it was absolutely fantastic some judged it better than the renowned 2001!

So if by chance you have some can I buy it back??

No, drink it! Decant first one to two hours then enjoy!!

Can you spot david working in the Vines??

See how you can now see the stem of the vine after all the extra growth was taken off.

Grape set looking good

This is what the vines look like now, 1st July 2008.

Our job now is to take off all unwanted growth, so to allow all the goodness to go into the grape.

I like this job as you see instant results

Look at the next picture - Sarah

Weeding!! The Natural Way!!

you can see we are green,we do it not just talk about it!!!

Many vineyards are now talking about their green credentials and a common quote is "we use chemicals wisely and have adopted the lutte raisonee approach" .Well we should all use chemicals wisely because they cost a lot of money and miss use could harm the vines or other crops close by! With our weeding taking place by using a pellenc weeding machine when conditions allow and when not ,weeding is done by hand!!! This attention to detail means the soil below our vines doesn't look like an arid desert .

These beautiful wild orchids prove a point!!