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Jamie Goode's Wine Blogg

They only just discovered JAS, great write up so happy

REAL FOOD FAIR 5 - 8 May 2011

Back home from the Real festival in Earls Court ,London. Many thanks to J and C for putting us up and some fabulous food , the same can be said for Katy and Nigel had a great night with good conversation and wonderful food. Last but not least Paul and Carol thank you for your great efforts on Saturday and Sunday. Beer sold out again, well done Paul.

REAL FOOD FAIR 5 - 8 May 2011

REAL FOOD FAIR 5 - 8 May 2011

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.realfoodfestival.co.uk%2F&h=657d7

Exhibitors

Exhibitors


I think if you follow this link you can see us on the Real Food Festival site But not sure on that!!!

Pruning

Domaine du Merchien Pruning progresses despite the wet misty and sometimes very cold weather, it has to be done so you just have to get on with it! On a lovely clear sunny day with the buzzards soaring above you and not a sound except for the tractor in the distance there isn't a better place I' d rather be.

Dilemma

Domaine du Merchien DILEMMA Question,do we bother to send samples for the Wine Gang to sample or will they go through a pre selection and not being one of the great and good ,be put to one side before the Wine Gang even set foot in the region? Or should I go and put the 30 euros (per sample) on the loto?

Well what a winter so far. For you who have been following the BLOG on our site www.merchien.com or our Facebook page ( just search MERCHIEN) you will know that David predicted a cold cold winter due to the enormous amount of fruit the hedge row produced old wives tells and all that. Well we are certainly in the throes of a cold winter and according to the old locals it is not going to end yet!! (I think I will need some new long johns due to over use and as a friend said to me “Winter draws on my dear”)

Work Load
Work in the vine yard has been a bit slow, mainly due the cold weather, but still had to do markets for the regular clientele but with -10 at St Antonin and Limogne this Sunday not very pleasant but at least it wasn’t raining . Dry cold just makes your face red and bum cold for the rest of the day, the wet get the boxes damp makes the labels crumple and is generally miserable.
News BIG NEWS!
Merchien is finally going officially ORGANIC, starting from this year we are signing up to the ORGANIC movement. The reasons for this are to increase our market place and give us more opportunities to sell our wines. In David’s market in Limogne he is opposite an Organic wine maker and though people taste our wine, like it, see that we don’t use chemicals in the vineyard but because we have no officially label they go across the way and buy the wine without tasting it just because it has a big fat AB(organic) sign on it (I just don’t get it!!). So because of our principals, more marketing opportunities and to get one of those big fat AB labels we are on our way.
The Good News For Us But Maybe Not For You!!
It looks like a chain of shops in the UK are going to stock our wine. As you all know we have been trying to do this for a while, not only for the income (but that is nice) but to increase our visibility and audience in England and Wales, sadly not Scotland yet. So good for us but stocks will start to go. So for any of those who haven’t taken your full allocation for 2010 please order now while stocks last!!! (Always wanted to say that). I have attached a list of wines for you, please don’t delay as I do not want to disappoint.
2010 Wines.
All red wines need Malolactic to take place but way too cold for that and Rose still fermenting very very slowly will probably have to heat it up a bit next week. Really looking forward to seeing how the pure Merlot turns out, this is mine and Zachary’s little baby he really has taken an interest in this wine must be his age! This year will be the first time we have a pure Merlot and pure Gamay along with the old favorite pure Cabernet Franc.
Finally
A Partner In Wine at Domaine du Merchien; Clare Brigstocke for one night only is taking over a Paris restaurant on Friday, 18th February, the meal, a menu découvert featuring traditional English food, is by reservation only. The website is www.lecoindetableparis.com and reservations are emailed to contact@lecoindetableparis.com. If know anyone in Paris who would like to discover the restaurant and Clare’s wonderful food please use contact details.
Health Wealth and good wine drinking!!

Jan 2011 Pruning ????

Photos of today!! so foggy rainy and grey somewhere in the photos is the vines out back!!
Pruning has started but after the cold snowy, dry underfoot December the temperatures have really warmed up The bad news is it feels like it hasn't stopped raining. With our clay soil its difficult to even walk in the vines let alone prune them. slipping and sliding all over the place with electric secateurs in your hand is not advisable as you can easily cut yourself, that's why so many wine producers are minus a finger!!!
So we have plenty of other things to do to keep us occupied so we won't be sitting in front of the fire reading a good book as many people think we do all winter?

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

We would like to send Christmas greetings to all of you that have supported us this year, many thanks and we shall raise a glass or two to you tonight ,have a good one and we hope to see you again soon.

South West France Gets Snow As Well

Well there you go, people said I was mad when I said it was going to be a long snowy winter,see last post? I said this because I can't remember seeing so many berries ,fruit in the hedgerows as this autumn! We all know the old wives tale but this year you could tell there was a difference, a larder brimming full to be harvested and stored away for hard times ahead? So far I've been proved correct but yesterday we had a rest-bite and it was T shirts and 18 degrees but the cold returned today and is forecast to stay, we shall see?We have the horses back for the winter so looking forward to Sunday afternoon, hoping the weather will be kind so we can ride out in this beautiful countryside.

Decuving last cuve thank goodness, not my favourite job! Looks to be a very good harvest, saving some grapes to make some eau de vie before Christmas, picture to follow....David

Got a strange feeling about this winter I think it is going to be long cold and snowy! This year we have had a bumper crop of grapes but not only grapes all fruit and veg has been good , so many people have said what a great crop they have had from the garden and the hedgerows are full of berries, we have discovered two crab apples trees and quince trees we didn't know we had.

This weeks RANT!!! Why do we get more and more English tourists visiting our lovely outdoor markets, commenting on how nice that looks and taking pictures etc to walk all the way through the market to go and stock up on mass produed wine, beer and plastic cheese at the supermarket, to walk back through the market saying how nice French markets are? Perhaps we should charge them for passing through and put a levy on every photo they take ?...........David

Can anyone answer why vines like ours have lost all their foliage while other vineyards still have most of theirs? I can only deduce that knowing a little of the systems that are involved in some of the vineyards, is that those that have lost all the foillage are low chemical ,organic whereby the ones still with a lot of leaf have a more conventional chemical policy?

Facebook Merchien

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Domaine-du-Merchien/121133447945576

Autumn Colours in the Lot in Cahors valley

Harvest 2010 From Dawn to Dust

The Day begins Yes that's a vine and they are grapes, so start picking JP"
Keep smiling Tim only 60 tons left to pick
Emma "what are you doing to my vines with such a shaggy dog hair do"
Peter always smiling even though the day is long
Nikki ! my photo will be better and where is that frog you tried to kiss NON NO sorry take a photo of!!!
Whoops Got the order of photos wrong that's David eating his marmite on toast for breakfast , it might be a French Vendage but it will not be any good if the chief doesn't get his very English marmite in the morning

Time for a RANT

Talking to a good friend,customer and long standing Partner in Wine,yesterday we got round to talking about a new superstore just completed in our local town and how we couldn't understand how people could get excited about this? In the three villages where we do regular markets at the weekend large supermarket chains are trying to build new smaller supermarkets in my opinion to the detriment of the village and the small independant shops still left! I further think that it won't be good for the markets which inturn will have a knock on effect on the bars and resturants?
Going back to my good friend who like me was gob smacked by his sister in law who in conversation on a recent visit said no way she would shop in the local market because she had no idea where the food came from? My blood boils but on saying that it is up to us marketers to educate the public that it is from just down the road and picked at the right time not early to please the supermarkets? Comments please!

Autumn views before harvest

A selection of views of the vineyard at the start of Autumn along with the lees left in the bottom of the vat after bottling the GM. These are stored along with all the other lees from other cuves and sent to the distillery once a year and is sort of a tax which we have to pay it is then made into industrial alcohol ,I believe?

Weeding in what we call the big field can on the whole only be undertaken by hand. This means strimming by hand and in extremely hot weather, the weeding machine just can't cope with the old vines. So the rows are weeded twice during the growing season with the last passage taking place in September, although with all the weeds around doesn't look nice and goes against all the text books the vines don't seem to suffer. I think this is due to them not carrying loads of grapes and therefore not being pushed to hard and consequently not being stressed? This is my simple take on the situation but the proof is in the pudding it works!