Virgile's Vineyard (10 page)

‘What sort of condition was the estate in when you started?' I ask.

‘Appalling. I mean, totally abandoned. We more or less rebuilt the château. And practically every hectare of vineyard needed replanting – except for a little ancient Carignan and Grenache that we still use for our top wine, the Château de Lastours itself.'

‘We only tasted your regular red at lunchtime,' says Manu, plumbing new depths of unsubtlety.

M. Lignères, however, simply nods approvingly and tells us how it was another of their
cuvées
– named after Simone Descamps, the handicapped project's original driving force – which has perhaps done most to publicize the
domaine
. In a recent blind tasting it was ranked alongside some of the world's most exalted and expensive properties. But when I voice the prosaic thought that most of us would consider wine-making at this level quite ambitious enough, without the added ‘complication' of a substantially handicapped workforce, his answer betrays a fascinating ordering of priorities.

‘We
have
to make something exceptional,' he explains with passion. ‘The reintegration of the handicapped depends on it. The feeling that they're contributing to something great helps them recover a sense of their worth.'

Before Manu can formulate any less oblique reminder that my niggardliness with the restaurant wine list has left him unacquainted with these finer efforts, we are joined by a figure as well-padded as M. Lignères is lean but of similar age and, to judge from the spring in his plimsolls, imbued with the same energetic commitment.

‘André Puyal,' says M. Lignères. ‘My number two.'

‘Maybe this is the man with the corkscrew,' says Manu's brightening expression. But André Puyal turns out to be the man with the four-wheel drive – for, despite the continuing rain, M. Lignères thinks we should see a bit of the estate.

When Manu first bluffed our way in here, M. Lignères was quick to explain his difficulty in more than half rising to greet us. ‘A bad crash in one of those.' He gestured ruefully towards a giant photograph of a racing car behind him. He used to be a driver – when not otherwise engaged as master wine-maker and psychologist – and the accident left him partially paralysed and wheelchair-bound for many years. However, a combination of physiotherapy and the iron will that he clearly brings to all things has recently enabled him to walk again – not without difficulty but with only occasional support from a stick. He can also drive but M. Puyal is more the man for what's in store.

I am not entirely sorry that Manu insists on sitting in the front of the Land Rover. M. Lignères's ‘enormous altitude variations' are linked by such steep ascents and precipitous descents that I am soon regretting the richer elements of my lunch. Indeed, M. Puyal explains that many of these inhospitably stony tracks are used for testing racing cars.

‘All the top names come here with their new designs,' he says, as we skid downhill through the rain-soaked golden gorse. ‘You see those guys on the ridge over there? That's the Mitsubishi team. They'll stay with us for as long as it takes to break the car. Then, when they've seen where it's broken, they'll take it away to decide how to make it stronger. But we also hire out four-wheel drives for ordinary drivers to use the circuit. It helps attract people from other regions, who then discover our wines. It's also why we developed the hotel side of our operation,' he continues, as I begin to wonder whether this multi-faceted enterprise has any limits.

‘You can't just stand still,' he says, as if reading my thoughts. ‘We live in what Jean-Marie calls a “Kleenex Society”. Everything is disposable. New ideas are needed all the time to keep the public's interest. But all the fringe activities, like the concerts and the art exhibitions – did Jean-Marie mention those? – they also help to “socialize” our disabled employees.'

There is little sign of the disabled this afternoon, except for some shadowy silhouettes huddled in a distant, steamed-up minibus. There has also been little sign of Manu's hoped-for tasting but, just as we are taking a more promising turn towards the
cave
, we stop to greet an approaching tractor.

M. Puyal introduces us to Georges, the serious, slightly anxious-looking driver. His report on his afternoon's activities proves him a man who knows his Grenache from his Syrah and his ‘goblet' pruning from his
cordon royat
but he is rather surprisingly one of the handicapped.

‘Needed a lot of shelter and support at first,' says M. Puyal, as Georges drives on. ‘But then he teamed up with one of the handicapped girls and we gave them a little flat on the estate. Now they're well enough to live together in the village. Someone pops in to help them sort out their bills but they're well on their way to integration.'

As we speed back to the
cave
, he declares Georges to be ‘one of their best successes' – and he is right: when you have met Georges, the notion that the wine which you may be about to sample has rivalled the legendary Château Pétrus somehow seems less important.

*

‘
Tu veux aller ébourgeonner?
' asked Virgile, when I picked up the telephone.

I had no idea what ‘ébourgeonning' might involve but I said I could be with him in half an hour. He told me I'd be working for the first time
dans le vert
. I had no idea what working ‘in the green' meant either but it sounded more fun than pruning dead wood from olive trees in a howling gale.

I had in fact been pruning quite worrying quantities of dead wood. I needed to ask the Vargases' advice – or rather that of Madame Vargas, since Monsieur was still not back on his feet – but that would have to wait.

Just as I found a parking space in front of Le Pressoir, some rain hit the windscreen. Nothing so remarkable about that, except that this afternoon the sky was brilliantly, cloudlessly blue – so blue that it made you wonder how the rainclouds could ever return – and yet there it was: rain on the windscreen.

‘It's the wind,' said Marie-Anne, coming out from the restaurant with her two little daughters to greet me. The children laughed at a couple of elderly villagers who were struggling to remain vertical for a windswept game of
boules
at the bottom end of the square. Then a sudden gust threw rain in all our faces and the children's laughter turned to tears. But still the sun shone on. ‘It must be raining up on the Larzac and blowing all the way down on the wind,' Marie-Anne explained, as she took her protesting offspring back inside. ‘No wonder we get these rainbows!'

It was every bit as blustery when Virgile and I reached our target patch of vines near Montpeyroux.

‘Grenache Blanc,' he announced, ‘Don't ask me what I'm going to do with it. It was part of a job lot that I'm renting but I haven't any other white grapes.'

‘For a blend, you mean?'

‘You have to mix at least two
cépages
for a white Coteaux du Languedoc – the same as for a red. I suppose I could make a single-variety
vin de pays
but I can't say I'm very convinced by the idea of pure Grenache Blanc. So it was rather a crazy acquisition.'

But of course, it would take much more than a few doubts about the usefulness of a vine to make Virgile relax his usual exacting standards, as rapidly becomes clear when he starts explaining the business of the day. The
bourgeons
prove to be the buds, which have burst in a windswept profusion of delicate, fluffy new leaves and fresh, pale green shoots (hence our working
dans le vert
). However, they are mostly
too
profuse for Virgile's liking. I had fondly imagined the winter pruning to be more than rigorous enough to achieve his intended low yields, but no. If we are to have any hope of reaching that target half-litre per vine, we must examine every one of the five or six points of growth and strip off all but two of the shoots sprouting from each.

‘Not just any old two,' he emphasizes, as if I could have been naïve enough to imagine anything so simple. ‘Always keep the strongest. But favour the shoots that are most in line with the row. And of course, lower rather than higher, where possible. We're thinking ahead to the next round of pruning here, deciding where we want next year's shoots.'

Virgile leaves me grappling with the conflicting priorities – every bit as indecisive as I was at the pruning stage and thinking that surely three-dimensional chess would have been less stressful.

*

A couple of weeks ago Babette put up a new sign. ‘Between 19.30 and 21.30 meals only,' it said.

‘You mean, we can't call in for just a drink any more?' I asked, surprised that her dinner trade at this time of year could be brisk enough to exclude the casual imbiber.

‘Oh,
you
can,' she said. ‘All the regulars can.'

‘Is this your new summer
régime
or something?'

‘Hardly,' she laughed, as the wind howled outside. ‘It's just that I've been getting a lot of rough types coming up from Lodève, looking for trouble. But now I can point to the sign.'

This seemed to make sense until I made my first ever Saturday evening visit last weekend. When I arrived at about eight o'clock I could hardly open the door, there were so many villagers drinking at the bar.

‘So how will you explain this lot to your undesirables?' I asked.

‘Easy – I'll say they're waiting for tables.'

Babette was cheerfully oblivious to the fact that there was only one table laid, let alone occupied. The recently widowed octogenarian Monsieur Privat was, as usual, tucking into one of his twice-a-day, every day meals at his regular table near the kitchen. (No one knew how he survived on her
jour de fermeture
.) Otherwise, there didn't seem to be the slightest interest in food; but before I could put this to Babette, another wave of ‘regulars' forced its way inside and she was overwhelmed with drinks orders.

Babette's new dining rules may have nothing to do with summer but there are many indications that warmer times are finally on their way. She herself has taken down the café terrace's wall of plastic weatherproofing and poked some artificial roses in amongst the neglected-looking greenery in her concrete planters. Down in Saint Saturnin, Pius is busy constructing a big wooden platform in front of Le Pressoir to quadruple his outdoor capacity. And back here in the village shop, Nathalie has put up a notice that, as from next month, she will be offering fresh milk as well as the disgusting ‘long-life' that we have endured all winter. (‘The visitors prefer it,' she told me.)

Even closer to home, a trio of the noisiest frogs imaginable has arrived to keep me awake throughout the summer, croaking loudly beside the pool in three-part counterpoint every night. They are also the greenest frogs imaginable – a thoroughly implausible, children's story-book green. Tree frogs, according to my uncle's dog-eared but vividly illustrated Mediterranean nature book. I spotted one of them jumping into the water and could hardly believe that such a tiny, three-centimetre body could generate such reverberating, sleep-banishing volume.

Meanwhile, all around the garden, there are dozens of once anonymous, indistinguishable shrubs bursting into vibrantly varied life. Geraniums for the breakfast balcony have found their way into my shopping basket and the first – but certainly not the last – of the new season's insects have delivered their bites.

But surely the most striking indication that the seasons are changing is the number of friends who are starting to telephone – ostensibly to check on my welfare but rapidly progressing to explore my receptiveness to visitors.

There are two bedrooms in the main house but the separate studio has always seemed the ideal lodging for all but the closest of guests. However, some vital work is needed to make it safe, especially a few repairs to the wrought-iron staircase leading up to the galleried sleeping area. So yesterday Monsieur Parrouty, a convincingly burly-looking blacksmith, came up from Lodève to take a long, thoughtful look.

‘What do you think?' I asked, as I shook his blackened, vice-like hand and introduced him to Uncle Milo's rickety spiral.

‘Bawf,' said M. Parrouty.

In fact that proved to be mainly what he said. He was a man of few words. He was more preoccupied with stroking his opulent moustaches. Indeed, metalwork, I decided, could represent only a minor sideline for a man whose principal activity was clearly the winning of the local whisker-growing competition. A pair of luxuriant S-shaped curls looped nearly down to his chin, before twisting magnificently back again to reach almost as high as his ears. They obscured so much of his face that it was quite impossible to interpret the stream of ruminative noises, as he sized up the assignment.

‘Baaaawfff,' he said in tones that could as easily be read as an expression of admiration for Uncle Milo's staircase design as one of dismay at its state of repair. But before I could elicit any more articulate estimate of the problem, my powers of speech were cut short by a blood-curdling scream from the roof.

In retrospect, I suppose, it was not so much a scream as a screech. Certainly not a squeal. The sheer volume, let alone the violence of the noise put it far beyond the frontiers of squealing. A shriek perhaps, something halfway between fear and anger – but whatever the
mot juste
, there was evidently something up there that was not best pleased to be disturbed. And something substantial too.

The shriek was rapidly followed by a tumultuous frenzy of movement. As far as I could tell, and improbable as it seemed, the furious scrabbling seemed to be coming from an almost negligible gap between the steeply sloping ceiling boards and the roof tiles immediately above them. I tried to console myself with the thought that the sound of a pigeon on a slate roof in England could reverberate below as if an eagle had chosen to perch there but, deep down, I knew that something formidable had taken up residence beneath the terracotta.