Virgile's Vineyard (22 page)

Despite the late hour, he manages to make time for everyone, not least a succession of tiny, uncomprehending village children who never fail to distract him for a joke or a cuddle. He would make a natural father but, as he has often lamented, Saint Saturnin remains a village of bachelors.

And a business deal forced Sarah to cancel her summer visit.

*

‘This isn't an aristocratic house,' says Count Henri de Colbert, the owner of the Château de Flaugergues since 1972, as he leads me up the monumental eighteenth-century staircase, occupying almost a third of this otherwise elegantly simple building. ‘Like all the so-called “Montpellier Folies”, it belonged to one of the newly-rich financial people, the Montpellier Mafia, if you like.' He pauses halfway up to show me one of the staircase's famous, gravity-defying key vaults. ‘Etienne de Flaugergues,' he continues past some magnificent tapestries, ‘a Councillor at Montpellier's Court of Revenue, Grants and Finance, bought the place in 1696. An ordinary farm, it was then. It took him until 1740 to turn it into what you see today.'

‘But it was already a wine estate?' I ask.

‘It was a vineyard in Roman times,' says the Count, as if a mere three hundred years of tradition might be beneath his contempt. ‘But remember, there was very little monoculture anywhere until the nineteenth century. Still, we mustn't get bogged down in history. This is a living place – the only “Folie” which is an operating wine estate and open to the public and permanently lived in.' (I have already seen the subtle clues of occupation in the bulge of the Count's folded pyjamas under the covers and the Kerouac novel on the bedside table, in an otherwise faithfully nineteenth-century bedroom.) ‘They're called “Folies” because they were built “in the foliage”, not because they were acts of madness – although some were madder than others. They were mostly summer residences.'

‘This close to the city?' I query.

The Château de Flaugergues is certainly close to Montpellier. It is effectively
in
Montpellier, just three kilometres from the city centre and completely surrounded by offices, hypermarkets and ring roads. The post office knows it more prosaically as 1744 Avenue Albert Einstein. Incredibly, however, here amongst all the tarmac and concrete, are thirty hectares of vineyard. In the hands of anyone less determined, they too might have been swallowed up by the urban sprawl which now fills almost every metre between the city and the sea.

‘What interests you most about Flaugergues?' asks Count Henri, as we head outside to the terrace dotted with citrus bushes. ‘Wine or culture?'

I have not really thought about it. With neither of my ‘minders' at my side – Manu being preoccupied with preparations for his own
vendange
and Krystina away for a few days, pampering herself at a health spa – life seems altogether less polarized.

‘Both, I suppose,' I hesitate.

‘Good,' he replies decisively. ‘For me they're inseparable. The house was built for pleasure and it's our aim to share that pleasure.' He gives each of the statues of Peace and Plenty guarding the front door an affectionate pat on the head. ‘Did you see the sundial on your way in? You win a bottle of wine if you know the meaning of the motto: “
Jam non tua
” … No? It means “No longer yours”. Time, that is. As soon as you've looked at the clock, the moment's passed. We have to make the most of every second, every good thing. So why don't we taste some wine while we talk some more?'

He leads me down through the lovingly restored geometry of the formal French garden, created, he explains, with ten thousand box trees gathered by the family on Sunday afternoons in the
garrigue
.

‘We finished the
vendange
yesterday,' he says, as we reach the
cave
. ‘So the pressure's very slightly off. Except, oh dear, I've a coachful from Denmark arriving. I might have to leave you to my oenologist. He'll tell you how much better the wines could be, if I'd only spend money on air-conditioning for the
cave
. Well, maybe one day … But here's a challenge.' He pours me a glass of his ‘Cuvée Sommelière'. ‘Our best seller in Britain, this. But how many months in oak, would you say? A last chance to win the bottle of wine.'

‘Three?' I suggest cautiously.

‘None at all.' He smiles delightedly. ‘Just an exceptionally long fermentation. Fools a lot of experienced critics … But you'll have to excuse me, they're here,' he apologizes, and I watch him gathering his party round the sundial's motto and ebulliently offering that unclaimed bottle to any Danish Latin scholar who shares his own sense of how to get the most out of life.

*

I have not missed the last day after all. Yesterday's Carignan was more plentiful than Virgile had thought and required more elimination of individual, sub-standard grapes. Another morning's work remains.

‘We're going to finish on the very day that we started last year,' says Virgile delightedly. ‘My mother's come up from Montpellier to make us a celebration lunch but goodness knows where we'll have it. The flat's far too small.'

Anyone who has had the briefest involvement with the harvest appears to have been invited. An hour or so's work and it seems you're in, so a picnic would be best, if only the wind would die down. But none of Mme Joly's exasperated appearances in the
cave
has succeeded in clarifying her son's plans for either venue or menu. He has other priorities.

‘A completely different fermentation technique,' he promises, as he rinses one of the last two empty fibreglass tanks. ‘A
macération carbonique
. No more destemming.' He gestures towards the detested, space-consuming
érafloir
, which is still outstaying its welcome. ‘Just whole, uncrushed bunches, piled on top of each other in the
cuve
. We can make a start with the leftover crates from yesterday. But first some DIY.'

He winks as he carries a length of lightweight plastic tubing and a roll of sticky tape up to the top of the concrete vats.

‘We need to borrow some carbon dioxide,' he explains, as he improvises a pipe to funnel the gas from the tank of Grenache across to the empty
cuve
. ‘Some people rely on the gas produced by the fermentation of the bottom bunches, as their skins start breaking under the weight of those above, but this is more effective. Either way, by surrounding the grapes with carbon dioxide, you deprive the yeasts of the oxygen they need for a traditional fermentation.'

‘So what happens instead?' I ask, as I struggle to pass the first crate up to him at the top of the ladder that he has propped beside the
cuve
.

‘A yeast-free intra-cellular fermentation inside the grapes.' He sees me looking puzzled. ‘The important thing to understand is the difference in the resulting wine – brighter-coloured and fruitier. It works particularly well for Carignan.'

‘Virgile, I'm going shopping,' calls a maternal voice from the square outside. ‘You'll have to trust me.
A bientôt!
'

I clamber back over the obstacles for another crate. The back of the tiny
cave
has never seemed so depressingly far removed from the front, as I mentally multiply the distance between the van and the ladder by the quantity of crates remaining to be emptied. However, before these dispiriting calculations can be completed, in slouches Luc with a friend of his to ask what we're up to.

‘Waiting for you two to help us,' answers Virgile, as Luc and his equally exercise-averse sidekick find themselves unexpectedly conscripted into a human chain.

With three pairs of arm muscles – even with Luc's scrawny biceps reluctantly responsible for the final upward push – the task seems to take about a tenth of the time. We are almost congratulating ourselves on clearing the backlog when Virgile's tractor rumbles up with a trailer which must contain easily twice the quantity that has just been emptied into the
cuve
. But at least we now have Arnaud's limitless energies at our disposal – indeed, such is his whirlwind of energy that Luc and his friend are able to sacrifice the lunch invitation for which they have just qualified and slink away for a few days' rest.

The remainder of the picking gang returns in Gerard's car with jubilant tales of celebratory grape fights. Gerard's peeved expression and grape-stained shirt cannot, I feel, be unconnected with Margherita looking so spotlessly pleased with herself. Magda too seems suspiciously gratified by the spectacle of Florent's stickily matted locks, requiring heaven knows how many hours of shampooing in the shower. They disappear to clean themselves up, leaving Arnaud and me to ferry the final crates into Virgile's waiting arms.

The morning harvest is almost too much for the
cuve
. Indeed, I wish more had been wasted in the grape fight, as Virgile clings to the top of the ladder, trying to juggle the final bunches into the last remaining cubic centimetres. But then, at last, the assembly of the
macération carbonique
, and with it the whole of the
vendange
, is finished.

‘The end!' whispers Virgile, looking almost disbelievingly round at all the different fermentations that he has set in motion over the past few days: nine well-filled
cuves
and one deliberately left empty to allow for future rackings.

‘I'm not sure I'd have believed all this back in January,' I tell him, genuinely humbled by the achievement.

‘
Si tu veux, tu peux
.' He gives a modest shrug.

‘If you want, you can,' I repeat to myself quietly, thinking there are worse philosophies than this.

‘But not quite the end,' Virgile briskly returns to the fray. ‘It's washing-up time, Arnaud.'

He starts to strip to his boxer shorts, which seems an unnecessarily radical approach to the cleaning of the crates. But then he puts his ladder up against a
cuve
of Syrah and starts clambering into it. The high-pressure hosing is, as usual, Arnaud's department. Virgile has what he calls a
pigeage
to do.

‘Excuse me, there are people over here trying not to be put off their food,' calls Pius from Le Pressoir's terrace, where Virgile's semi-nudity is apparently visible through the ever-open doors.

‘Make the most of it. I'll be charging a fee from next week,' replies Virgile, before explaining to me what he is up to.

The half-solid ‘cap' of skins and pips needs to be submerged in the juice to stop it drying out. It also needs plenty of general agitation to extract maximum colour and flavour. Of course, many would achieve these things less picturesquely with a pole, he admits as he hauls his purple-stained body out of the Syrah and into the main tank of Cinsault and I utter a silent prayer that Manu falls into the latter, less folkloric category.

‘Let no one deny that he puts a lot of himself into his wine,' quips Arnaud.

‘Old joke,' puffs Virgile, clinging to the side, as far from the dreaded carbon dioxide fumes as possible. ‘You wouldn't believe how hard this cap is,' he adds, although I would in fact, because it almost supported his weight when he started.

‘Are you going to be long in there?' asks a long-suffering Mme Joly, come to tell him that everyone else is ready and waiting.

‘We're using Stéphane's garden,' says Virgile. ‘I phoned him while you were out. It's the last on the right, as you leave the village. You take everyone down there and I'll be along in a quarter of an hour.'

Mme Joly frowns the frown of a mother who has experienced Virgile's quarters of an hour before. ‘Well, don't forget, you're bringing the wine,' she says, disappearing.

I excuse myself for a shower and return to the
cave
to find Virgile on his third – and he promises me final –
pigeage
. ‘Just five minutes,' he assures me unconvincingly, as I head on down to the picnic ground.

‘Incredible!' I gasp at the sight of the abundant pastoral banquet with which Mme Joly is busy anchoring two large tablecloths on the windswept lawn.

It seems inconceivable that she could have sliced all these tomatoes, beetroots and radishes in so little time – or grated all this carrot; or chopped all this fruit; or even managed to unwrap the profusion of pâtés, hams and cheeses that are jostling one another for space. And yet there is more: sausages and chicken pieces are already sizzling on a barbecue.

‘And all from that tiny kitchen!' I marvel.

She gives my compliment a modest shrug.

‘It's amazing,' I insist. ‘Just like Virgile's miracles in his tiny
cave
.'

‘
Si tu veux, tu peux
.' She smiles as she tosses an overflowing bowl of salad leaves. ‘But you think his wine's all right?' she adds, sincerely seeking reassurance.

‘All right?' I laugh in disbelief.

‘I'll take that as a “yes”,' she says, returning her attention to the barbecue. ‘But you realize, he only got inside that cave a week before last year's harvest? He was tending his vines all year, with nowhere to go. Then just at the last minute, he found this place. It took him all of the first week to get rid of the animal smells. “I'll never be able to take my grapes in there,” he kept saying. But he managed.'

‘
Si tu veux, tu peux
,' I echo, more impressed than ever.

What Virgile has not managed, however, is his own arrival with the wine. The single bottle contributed by Florent has long since been drained and the pickers are growing restless, so I make an emergency sprint back to the
cave
.

‘It's in the storeroom, under the stairs leading up to the flat,' says Virgile, who has emerged from the
cuve
and is drying himself with a very red-stained towel. ‘The key's on a hook over there by the fuse-box. I just need to shower and send a quick fax to the analysis laboratory. Then I'll be there. Promise.'