It soon became clear that ‘slate soil, old-vine Grenache’ was
not the only theme we were going to have. A ‘late to bed, early to rise’ theme was
emerging, too! Yves and I were up early to get to Lesquerde for some shots in
the morning light. I lived here for almost 5 years and had this view every
morning. You never forget a landscape like this of rugged garrigue, old goblet
pruned vines, Cypriot trees and with a backdrop of the snow-capped Pyrenees
mountains.
Once Yves was satisfied with the shoot, we headed back down
into Maury and up the other side of the l’Agly Valley, into the red clay
terroir of the Corbieres. We continued for a little further, stopping in Padern
at the Café des Sports. Time has stood still here and so had the coffee! But
it’s great for some real French village photos.
A further 10 minutes on, we crossed in to AOC Fitou, rejoining
Tony, Andrée and Cat at the Mont Tauch winery. Fitou is another remarkable
pocket of soils and micro climates with Carignan, Grenache and Syrah being the
star grapes here, each being suited to a particular soil. Fitou has quite a
history and was actually the first place in the Languedoc to be awarded AOC status
way back in 1948!
Fitou is situated on the border between the Languedoc and
the Roussillon. In fact, the name Fitou comes from the latin word for border
‘fita’. The Fitou appellation consists of nine villages. Inland in the
mountainous areas there are the slate soils of Villeneuve, the ‘Poudingues du
Pilou’ (cobblestones) of Paziols and the
limestone soils of Tuchan and Cascastel. Then, on the Mediterranean coast, you
find the villages of La Palme, Treilles, Caves and Leucate
We tasted through each of the terroirs and I particularly
liked the softness of the Carignan from the limestone but, surprise-surprise, the
slate-planted Grenache was the standout wine for us!
Next was lunch at the infamous Vignerons de Embres et
Castelmaure winery with Tony’s long time friends and wine pioneers Patrick de
Marien (President) and Bernard Pueyo (director). I have heard a lot about these
guys but I have never had the pleasure to visit or meet these living legends. And
my word, what a visit it was to be!
We were greeted by the very jolly Bernard ‘the bear’ Pueyo and
taken to see the old and the new winery before being shown into their brilliant
home made tasting room! The colours of
the labels and the recognisable Castelmaure decorations are just brilliant,
too.
Bernard and his team had built the tasting room themselves …
and on a shoestring budget. I quickly began to realise what a legendary place this
is as it’s all about what is the best for the wine. The bar looks very cool and rather Red Heads
in style. And although the hanging lights are the ones used for dangling into
wine vats, there are big, clean tasting glasses, the wines are all chilled to
perfection, and a top-class enomatic bottle dispenser allows the wines to be
tasted by customers in perfect condition. Now that’s how to serve wine!
The tasting was just brilliant, Bernard and I getting along
very well indeed talking about the winemaking and vineyards (amongst other
random things!). I particularly liked
the freshness of the Grenache Gris/Rolle blend, the chilled red Buvette, 2010
Pompadour was lovely as always, the Syrah/Grenache Castelmaure 2009 Grande Cuvée
and lastly the stunning Cuvée 3 2010.
This was a tasting I will always remember and be sure to re-live again!
I still hadn’t met Patrick the president, but Bernard told
us we were invited to lunch at Monsieur President’s house, high above the
village. We arrived at Patrick’s front door. The bear didn’t knock; just barged
in ‘comme chez lui’ and Patrick suddenly appeared, hopping about and already
laughing. He immediately reminded me of a bizarre cross between John Lennon and
Clive Dunn!
Within minutes we were seated on the terrace each with a big
glass of chilled ‘Sois beau et Tais-Toi l'Esprit du Vent 2011’ and plenty of
homemade liver pate, what a combination. I – and I’m sure Tony – felt A REAL MIDI LUNCH
coming on! Sure enough, out came the magnificent charcuterie board, hams, pates,
boudins and saucisson, with non-stop laughing and joking from Patrick, Bernard
and now Tony and Andrée; just great to see old friends back together.
More wine flowed and then the main dish of homemade ‘legumes
farcie’ with a tomato rice, so perfect. Of course we finished with local goat’s
cheese and a brilliant 2009 Donner du temps au temps which has 2 years bottle
age before being released. Cherries,
white fig and peaches from the garden trees to finish. One of the best lunches I’ve ever had; simple
and such an inspiration.
By now it’s hot. Extremely hot, in fact, so with the agility
of an excited 14-year-old boy, Patrick jumps up (his espadrills defy logic and
continuously stick to his feet) and into his bright-red land rover, “into
vineyards he roars”. The bear follows, then Tony, I, Cat and Andrée; it’s now
its clearly only mad Midi men and women and English men and women out in the
sun.
We wound up the steep tracks high into the vineyards and – lo
and behold – old-vine Grenache on slate soil! There were more antics for the
camera before a crazy ride back down to the 11th century Chappelle St.Felix. Looking
up from the chappelle you can see the ruins of the original village of
Castelmaure abandoned in 1850 due to lack of water and a murder!
Goodbye was hard; I had had such a great time and wanted to stay
and learn more. We left with a boot full of wine and I even got a kiss from
Patrick! Madmen and legends, merci.
Andrée is always in charge and now tells us dinner is in Château
Pech Ceyleran near Narbonne. “Dinner?”,
we shout, “we just finished lunch!” So
it was off to Narbonne and to dinner with the 6th, 5th and
4th generations of the family de Exubury in their 18th
century Languedoc Château Pech Ceyleran! Second wind came as we were presented with a dusk
tasting under the moonlit turrets of the magnificent château.
Nothing would outshine the brilliance of Castelmaure, but
the day will be clearly remembered by what was to be served next: (you may have
guessed from the title of this blog) a ‘Reverse Battenberg’! This huge cake thing what they referred to as ‘un gateau du pate d’amande’ suddenly arrived,
covered in cream. As it neared, the cream was sliding from the surface and clinging
on for dear life! I was offered a ‘petit tranche’ to which I regrettably
replied “oui madame”. Goodness knows what a ‘grande tranche’ is and I hope never to find out. But what I was about
to discover was the sponge-looking consistency was in fact a pure, inch-thick
slice of marzipan and that the little topsoil of sponge and cream had long-since
slid away … a Mr Bean sketch came to mind.
All I can say is that the dinner and wines started off
perfect and light, but finished off like being thrown into a swimming pool with
a brick of marzipan attached to your right ankle. BED.
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