'Tis the season to be jolly, falalalala ................
Yes, I am looking forward to Christmas for a number of reasons. And, yes, I am patting myself on the back as the rosé is tasting extremely well, looking great and I am confident that we shall win medals for this wine and sell out before the Summer!

'Tis the season to be jolly, falalalala ................

Yes, I am looking forward to Christmas for a number of reasons. And, yes, I am patting myself on the back as the rosé is tasting extremely well, looking great and I am confident that we shall win medals for this wine and sell out before the Summer!

I arrived back in France at the beginning of the month with one main task - to bottle the rosé! Nothing else mattered really. Everyone confirmed that the wine is ready to bottle and that it is much better than last year's effort. Hihihihihi!! If all else fails, I shall enjoy drinking this myself on our terrace with views to the sea and mountains!

Before that, however, I had to attend to our annual audit. New regulations have come into force this year removing the old system of how you are awarded the coveted "AOC" label for your wines. An independent auditor is appointed by the Syndicat & the INAO to assess the whole operation - vineyard, winery, business etc. I am in favour of this but also have my reservations. I like the fact that vineyards will be properly inspected and problems highlighted as this will hopefully increase the quality of the AOC and St Chinian in particular. On the down side, there is no longer a tasting panel (which was slightly dubious anyway) to judge whether or not your wine is in the style & character of St Chinian. It is early days yet and there are many of us with the same concerns, but like any change, you have to give it a chance before you dismiss it completely out of hand.

I knew that there were some things which we could improve, particularly the traceability aspect which needs to be recorded on paper rather than remain in my head! But, having been audited already for NOP and Ecocert, I knew that in most areas we were OK. There is plenty of confusion and incomprehension about the new rules and regulations but hopefully I will see light at the end of the tunnel one day. The chap who came was perfectly pleasant and nice and very helpful, so I have nothing really to worry about.

With the economic downturn, I am looking to other markets outside of the UK where the exchange rate for example does not seriously impact on sales! With this in mind, I have been contacting several agents in France who specialise in selling wine to the Grande Distribution (Monoprix, Carrefour etc) to see if we might get a slot in one of their seasonal promotions. I am not really looking at a listing as our production is too small and I do not want to upset our cavistes. But, a one-off promotion in Spring or Autumn for one of our wines would be great. This is a very competitive market as you can imagine and the bureaucracy entailed is a nightmare. However, this is an important sales strategy for us if we are to make up for lost ground in the UK. We have several opportunities for 2009 and I would be delighted if one came off - I am not greedy!

So, the back to the main task for the month - bottling the rosé! I have decided to use a different bottling company this time to see if they are better/more organised. Bruno recommended the company to me as he has used them on some of the other domains he consults to. We decided to filter the rosé with a mixture of white / pink "earth" the day before bottling so the son of the owner came up to do this. On the day of bottling itself, we had several hours of setting up and making sure the lorry was level etc. I had to rally around friends to come and help as I was let down at the last minute so Kasia came to the rescue and Jean-Christophe from the village too! He was in the middle of pruning but felt it only Gallic to offer a "damsel in distress" a helping hand! There are times when it really pays to be "female & hopeless"!

Everything was going according to plan until it starting drizzling when I had to quickly get the parasol and create a make-shift cover over the palettes we were loading with boxes of wine! Why don't I ever get any luck?!? Then we had a problem with the labels - in the middle of the roll some had not been cut properly at the printers so we had to stop and sort this out several times which is frustrating. In the end, we managed to bottle all 9 palettes (5500 blles) by the end of the afternoon and everything was cleaned up by 7pm which is not bad. I am generally pleased with the bottling company and am eternally grateful (as ever) to all that came to help on the day.

I could now breath a sign of relief that this was done. At the same time, we transferred about one third of the 2008 reds into barrel and did some more racking. The new barrels will arrive in January when we shall transfer another third from tank into wood. The reds have gone into hibernation and the malo-lactic fermentation will now probably have to wait until Spring when it starts to get warmer. This is of no great concern really as our wines are not bottled until 18 months after the vintage so we have plenty of time for this to take place.

The only other important "task" I had to do was to finally get my hair done! A luxury I know but then a girl has got to look her best in the vineyard!

Happy Christmas & New Year!