Wine - the new season begins !

From 8am to 6pm, the sound of the birds is broken only by the rhythmic whizz of the electric clippers as Roget, Alain and Michel from Domaine les Acacias in Bezolles work their way slowly through the vineyard at the top of our drive.

They reckon it takes 50 man-hours to clip back a full hectare of vines to the single stalk from which this year's crop will eventually grow. With 27 hectares to complete, they started just before Christmas and will finish in early March. It's laborious work, but when the sun's out they seem to manage to stay in good humour.

The stems of the vines that are used to make the sweet dessert wine (Petit Manseng) are much tougher than those for the two white wines they produce (Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay), so Michel's wife Isobelle has taken a few days off whilst they complete that part of the vineyard. Then it's on to the next hectare !

The off-cuts are dried and make fabulous fresh smelling kindling for the summer BBQs.

The next stage, which will be later in the Spring when the new shoots are long enough, is to tie them all in to the training wires - another slow, time-consuming job. When you see how much work goes into producing a bottle of wine here, it's amazing they can sell it for just 2 or 3 euros and still make a profit.

I'll give some tips on what to look out for when buying wine in Gascony in a later Blog.