The start of the harvest is almost like an anti-climax as the long wait is finally over and the "fruits of your labour" from the last 9 months is finally in. The weather could not have been better - an Indian Summer - unseasonably warm for the year (we were still in shorts & T-shirts!).

We started picking in really ideal conditions starting with the Syrah ("Cerisiers" and "Homme Mort"). The grapes were at their best. Clean & healthy. The winery was ready and it was just a matter of waiting for the first trailer to come in. We knew with the first load that the volume was not going to be what we had planned but being ever the optimist, we knew also that some plots would be "meager" and others "bountiful". However, we did not expect the volume to have been too badly affected by the long warm growing season. Both "Cerisiers" and "Homme Mort" yielded around 3-4 tonnes of grapes which is around 15-20 hl of wine. When you usually expect 5-6 tonnes of grapes from both plots, you start to worry about what the rest will yield as the harvest progresses. Despite this, the quality of the juice was fantastic. The sugars were higher than normal but the acid/tannin levels good so there was no real concern about "stuck fermentations" causing a problem.

In the afternoon we picked some more Syrah on the "plateau" - a well exposed area overlooking the neighbouring village of Assignan. The two plots here are called "La Longue" (one of the oldest plots) and "La Manchette". Again, yields were below average but La Longue managed to give us nearly 4 tonnes which is good considering this is the plot which has the most "missing vines". La Manchette struggled to produce more than 1 tonne which is not really good enough in terms of overall cost of production and commercial viability.

The next day picked more Syrah from "La Riviere" and La Cave which gave us a generous return in terms of yield, generating around 9 tonnes which is about average. Again, the fruit quality was excellent.

We had a couple of days "rest" before the next picking of Grenache - "Les Poteaux" which we grafted last year. We had to be careful with this plot as it is still "fragile" and until it is well established we cannot use a machine to harvest grapes. Our team of pickers are really excellent - fast and efficient, they picked the whole plot of 2.5ha in one morning! We use some of the same people to help us during the Summer with the palissage or canopy management as they are really good at what they do. Again, the quality here is good and I hopeful that in years to come this will produce some great Grenache in the future. It should also be a good "cropper" and give us around 10 tonnes each year once it has matured more. This year we managed to get 5-6 tonnes which is good considering.

We had another "break" before picking the last of the Grenache - "Pati Noir" which was unfortunately "attacked" by our neighbouring goats in the Spring! However, we managed to get 5-6 tonnes again here and the quality is exceptional!

We were extremely lucky with the weather as we managed to get all our grapes in before the heavens opened and in the space of a day we had at least 50mm of rain. A week later we had another "storm" with water literally running down the hill onto the main road like a river. This was great for the vineyard but I only wished we had had more rain during the growing season to boost our yields!

Yohanna worked along side me throughout vintage and we had a really good rapport with each other. Frederic was on hand too and proved again how indispensable he is to us. His father came along a couple of times to offer advice or lend a hand which was nice. We also had a stagiare working with us for one week, David, who managed to participate in a days harvesting & processing. He was very eager and willing to the work and it was fun having him to stay.

And, nothing broke down in terms of equipment or indeed utilities! In fact, we did not have to use the press at all during the harvest as the rose is 100% free-run juice this year. This did require a lot of patience and waiting for the juice to be extracted from the tank but we managed to get 40 hl of rose which is great. The style and quality of the wine is similar to 2008 so I am hoping the wine will achieve the same accolades in due course!

This month, I also went to the UK to promote our wine with a new client - Oddbins - and visited around 10 of their stores in Central & West London. We were well received and I am hoping the wine will feature well with their customer-base. The shipping was a nightmare as the transporter arrived 3 weeks later than planned with an articulated lorry (how this got up the hill I don"t know!) and with a malfunctioning tailgate (without which we are not able to load pallets of wine!). I had just left to fly to London from Carcassonne when I get a phone call from our oenologue, Jean Paul, concerned that a large lorry had just turned up to load the pallets and what was I going to do?! After much to-ing and fro-ing with the shipper in the UK, Yohanna at the domain and Frederic "out and about" we managed to organise the collection in 2 days time with a smaller lorry that had a working tailgate. Well, the following day Yohanna calls me to say that the transporter was coming shortly and that she would aim to be there when he arrived (she was travelling back from Clermont Ferrand - 4 hours away!). When she arrived, it was the same lorry/driver! In the end, they hand loaded the wine on to the lorry and thankfully the wine is now in store so PLEASE GO TO ODDBINS AND BUY COMBEBELLE!

My cousins came to spend a week in the gite and Patrick came for a couple of days too which meant that I had "company" for pretty much the whole of the month. It also meant plenty of boule was played!

We started the "decuvage" at the end of the month managing to get the two wooden vats emptied before I left for Japan, leaving the rest to Yohanna and Frederic.