As a gesture for the environment, if not for my liver, I planted seventy vines this week. If all goes to plan - and lots can go wrong between planting a one year-old vine and opening the first wine three years later - Ulla and I will be able to share a bottle of Pépoulie appellation very definitely non-controlée every day of the year. The variety is Syrah, grafted on to an American rootstock because resistant to phylloxera. You can see the grafting as a red blob of wax three quarters of the way up each plant.
While I was digging the holes, the postman arrived. He asked if I was planting grapes for the table.
- No, to make wine, I said. Then, because I knew it was illegal to make wine to sell outside an appellation controlée area, quickly added:
- For consumption by me and by the family.
- And by the postman, he replied.
The neighbours have also approved of the initiative - phew - saying that we'll be able to drink ecological wine free of sulphites and other additives you get in shop-bought stuff, and so keep healthy in old age.
Let's hope it's drinkable.
