Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
spring evening, I stepped out onto the terrace into delicious warm air. The immense sky
was clustered with stars. Ellie was dropping stones into her water-filled beach bucket while
Sophia and Sean were deep in conversation. It was the weekend and way past their bedtime
but the conversation was so interesting I sat down.
'When I grow up will I find a good man like you to marry so I can have a baby?' asked
Sophia.
'Yes, you'll find a good man,' said Sean.
'I think I want to marry you.'
'But you can't marry me because I'm already married to mama. You'll find a man that can
make your heart sing, like a beautiful morning.'
'I don't need a man tonight because the stars are making my heart sing.'
Later that evening Sophia called me upstairs. Ellie was already fast asleep.
'I can't sleep because the stars are too bright and noisy.'
'But the shutters are closed.'
'I know but I can still hear them. They're excited that summer is coming.'
Iclosed my eyes and listened. Icould hear faint chattering in the distance ofthe still night.
Perhaps it was a party in Gardonne, perhaps it was the stars.
Back in the winter we had stopped heating the red wine and elected to wait for the malo to
start on its own in the spring. Spring was now well under way, even the stars were telling
us about it, but there was still no sign of the malo. We had promised buyers like Dave that
we'd bottle our merlot in May, but now it was out of the question.
Seantriedamalostarterculture,carefullyfollowingtheinstructions,makingsurethetem-
peratures were ideal and monitoring the wines like newborn babies. They remained calm
and oblivious.
'Don't worry,' said Lucille when I bemoaned how harsh the red wines still were. 'They will
soften as soon as the malos are finished. When do you want to bottle?'
'Before Christmas,' said Sean.
'Good. We'll make sure the malos are finished by October,' she said.
'But what else can we do?'
'Let's test them again and if there is still no activity we'll try a starter culture again.'
We were losing confidence in Lucille and we were tired of waiting. I found the wines
downright disgusting and for all Lucille's assurances I found it hard to believe that the malo
would make such a difference to how they tasted. I called another oenologist we had met a
