Your kind words?

Many thanks to Jem for his kind words and have taken his advice,purchasing a extra pair of knee pads just incase he would like to have a go next time he is over? Furthermore just like to thank his better half for the jar of Apple and Molasses 2009, excellent vintage,only problem the jar was a little on the small side!!!

Back breaking work

The weather is now looking more like summer and besides the never ending task of weeding we also have to take off any excess shoots from the stem and head of each plant, many people use weed killers to kill off those shoots from the stem but because we don't use them we do it the traditional way,by hand,which obviously takes much longer.

Back to work

Earls Court and the Real Food Festival seem a long time ago and the real work of weeding and tending the vines has started again and for the first day today the sun was out and it was warm ,most unusual since we are half way through May!! The cold and wet weather of the previous two weeks hasn't semed to of damaged the vines but it certainly made the weeds grow!The pictures of the Cab Franc behind the house show this very well and some more pictures will be taken of the weeding machine working and the rows after being weeded. The vines are due for another spraying and details of what and why along with pictures of the process will be put on the blog in the next few days.

The Naked Chef visits Quercy and Progress?

This week we see that Jamie Oliver visited our neck of the woods, albeit he didn't visit us personally he was taken truffle hunting by a very nice old gent using a pig ,who just happens to buy wine from Sarah!!Thats the gent not the pig! It was nice to see that Jamie picked our part of the world to visit but then those of us that live here often forget how lucky we are to live in a place that has so much going for it in the food wine and general way of life stakes. We of course don't bang on about it to often,else you all would want to live here and of course the dream would die? What I mean by this is that things are changing rapidly.For example, the need for a big supermarket in every town or large village, having lived in Britain I have seen what it has done to the local Baker, Butcher, general store etc and it is happening in 3 of our local towns(LARGE VILLAGES) it will kill the high street with its local shops selling local products and ship in its own alternatives from further afield!!! Progress not in my book,the ash cloud should happen more often, the local shops would be relatively unaffected while the multinational supermarkets would soon start to have prolems with supply?

Weather Home and Away

Well just about recovered from the trip back, ferry delayed for 3 hours then stuck in Paris for 2 hours. Glad to get home to some warm weather, I think not! since getting back its been raining nearly all the time and its very cold can't remember weather this cold in May before ? Pictures of the vines will be posted soon but must first wait for the rain to stop. Observations from London will be posted over the next few days so keep watching.

Middle

Real Food Fair 2010

Well, we arrived back at Merchien3.30 this morning, having wasted the whole of Monday, a so called Trade day at the Real Food Fair, the only problem in our and many other peoples opinion was that the trade didn't turn up for whatever reason? For other exhibitors who where not as fortunate as us and had to fork out for an extra days accomodation, food and travel plus the wasted day they won't be happy bunnies and it could reflect on participating next year?

We would like to thank all our friends for making us so welcome, Jem and Cathrine , Emma Kathy and Nigel you made us so welcome and even gave us a bit of a holiday! It was great to see all of you that took up our offer for free tickets on Sunday and Monday and hope you enjoyed the show, your comments please! Encouraging ,was the number of people who bought last year and had returned this year to seek us out to buy and tell us how much they enjoyed the wine and why on earth haven't we got suppliers in Britain?

For the first time we were displaying our beer now known as green pig and pink pig and after a dismal first day we decided to give tastings ,which is rather difficult with bottled beer ,but to cut a long story short it sold out with a day to go and comments were extremly positive!!!!

Glad to be back

David