Virgile's Vineyard by Patrick Moon Read Free Book Online Page A

continues. ‘The “angel’s share”, we call it.’
    â€˜Ah, the waste!’ sighs Manu, too captivated to notice how dearly he is going to pay for his failure to bring any form of rain-protection.
    â€˜But essential, you see, to turn an ordinary bright, fresh wine into the distinctive, rich, amber-coloured liquid that sets Monsieur Noilly’s product apart from the opposition.’
    â€˜And Monsieur Prat?’ asks Mme Gros, with menacingly icy calm.
    â€˜Monsieur Noilly’s son-in-law, Madame. Our first Marketing Director.’
    â€˜No wonder his name’s on the label,’ says Manu, still blissfully unaware of the impending storm, as he leads the retreat indoors for a tasting. ‘Anyone who could get my beloved to buy one of his bottles deserves the Légion d’honneur!’
    *
    Virgile is worried again.
    We are having lunch in the small, sparsely-furnished first-floor flat that he is renting from the Mairie in Saint Saturnin, until the house above his cave can be rendered fit for even his own, relatively undemanding, human occupation. The demands of wine-making leave little time or money for homemaking but lunch is something that Virgile does believe in.
    â€˜Food and sleep,’ he says, as he lifts two heavy slices of rare lamb from a frying pan and passes me a large bowl of salad. ‘Two things I won’t compromise on. Otherwise I can’t do anything else.’
    But he is still worried. His longer-maturing wine ought to be racked. It is still in its fermentation tank, on top of a bed of sediment known as the lees, and it urgently needs pumping off into a clean tank before the flavour’s spoilt.
    â€˜Could you taste a hint of rottenness the other day?’ he asks, unable to persuade himself that he can’t. ‘It’s the weather that’s the problem,’ he continues, as he tops up our glasses with the D’Aupilhac Carignan that I brought him. ‘We need a nice, crisp, sunny, anti-cyclonic day.’
    â€˜But surely racking is an indoor job?’
    â€˜We need high atmospheric pressure to push down on the lees. It keeps them settled at the bottom while we’re pumping the wine. But look at the miserable wet skies that we’ve had for the last few days. And that’s only part of the problem. In an ideal world, we’d wait for the moon as well.’
    â€˜Wait for the moon to do what?’
    â€˜To be in the right place,’ he says and pulls a much-thumbed booklet out of a drawer. ‘Have you not seen one of these before? It’s what we call a biodynamic calendar.’
    â€˜Bio… . ?’
    â€˜Dynamic. The bio aspect really just means ordinary organic principles. But the dynamic bit involves doing things when the planets are favourable.’
    â€˜Like new moons and full moons, that kind of thing?’ I ask disbelievingly.
    â€˜Not so much that as the movement of the moon in relation to the rest of the zodiac. You see, the calendar divides the year into four different categories, each of them earmarked as favouring one of a plant’s four key elements: the roots, the leaves, the flowers and the fruits. And if we’re doing anything that relates to the wine itself, we try to do it in a fruit period.’
    All this sounds a great deal wackier than the weather worries but, before I can betray too much scepticism, Virgile dials a number for a telephonic weather forecast.
    â€˜Not good,’ he sighs, as he puts the receiver back, looking even more depressed. ‘Maybe in a couple of days’ time.’
    â€˜But won’t that be a flower day?’
    â€˜Too bad,’ he says. ‘The wine won’t wait. And the weather’s more important. I’ll call you when the skies are clear.’

February
    On Sunday morning I was woken by the unrelenting ringing of a telephone.
    â€˜
Bonjour, c’est Virgile
,’ said the handset, as I fumbled in the dark for