The importance of family! At last I have managed to persuade my sister, Charlotte, to come and visit with Henry (after which I named our top cuvée in 2006!). And, surprise surprise - Mum & Dad came too!

It was the first time Charlotte had visited Combebelle and she could not have timed her visit better! I had just had an operation on my left wrist to remove a cyst and so was slightly incapacitated and in need of TLC. Who better than to have your twin sister there to look after you?!

Charlotte arrived on the same day that Patrick left to return to Japan which was unfortunate. I was all set to be in Carcassonne on time but again things never go according to plan in my life! I had dropped Patrick off at Montpellier early in the morning and was on my way back for meetings in Béziers when the car started slowing down on the motorway for no apparent reason! Needless to say, I am not a mechanic of any kind and thought "how the hell am I going to collect Charlotte later on in the afternoon?" I managed to get to a petrol station and find out what the problem could be - then the car started again normally, so thinking all was well again, I set off back on the motorway. I spoke too soon - I just about managed to get to Exit 36 before the car really gave up and I had to call Avis for help! It took them a couple of hours to collect me / arrange for a taxi to take me to their nearest agency which was in Narbonne. I arrived there at 12-noon having been told to get there by 12.30pm to collect the car. I should have known that this would be a problem as this is the "sacred" lunch-hour in France and everything stops for 2 hours. Unfortunately, a new trainee had just started and had literally returned from getting a sandwich but had left the door open. However, despite cajoling and threatening him, he could not (or rather would not) try to help me out until his boss arrived an 90mins later. Needless to say I was frantic with worry as Charlotte would be arriving at 4pm in Carcassonne and the clock was ticking. I had to swing by the house to collect the babyseat for Henry which added an hour to the journey and arrived in Carcassonne literally as Charlotte was getting her suitcase. Poor thing thought something had happened to me and did not know what to do - but it all worked out in the end!

There was no such problem when Mum & Dad arrived a week later thank goodness. Viv arrived a week later too which was nice.

In June the vineyard really sprouts up and there is a lot of work in managing / tidying the canopy, ploughing the rows (ridding them of excess weeds), and spraying against powdery mildew (oïdium). May/June brought more rain and we have had a touch of oïdium in some Syrah and Grenache but not nearly as much as some other vineyards down below. We have been lucky with the timing of our treatments and rainfall which has meant that our vineyard has been protected for the most part. The warm weather helped dry the vineyard out but we did not get the usual North Wind which usually follows rainfall at Combebelle. We are probably back on schedule though in terms of ripening unless further rain/cold spells arrive in July or August which might delay things.

There were also several orders to prepare and ship out. We are the stage where we do not have enough wine to sell and it is going to be a challenge to manage all our customers over the next 6 months until the 2007 is bottled early next year. We are in a fortunate position as many other producers are struggling to sell their excess stock and with the new reforms taking effect in July, our annual production for the region will be fixed for 3 years to allow them to sell this excess before increasing their production again. I now have to look ahead and expand our ever growing market as our production increases and we have more wine to sell. We will have double the quantity of wine to sell in 2009 and double that again in 2010, so we need to make sure we have a sufficient market to distribute this wine to. By continuing to win medals for our wines and to improve the quality & range available, there is no reason why we will not be successful. But with the economic downturn it will be difficult to sell wine which is termed as a "luxury" item, so pricing will be a key issue going forward.