Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
empty. Access to the underground portion, where the vat's main door and the pipe connec-
tion were, was via a wooden trapdoor located in the working zone of the
pressoir
. Rotten
and dangerous, the trapdoor was earmarked as a primary target for renovation.
I opened it and climbed down the ancient oak ladder into the gloom below. Once on solid
groundIattached thepipeasfastasIcould,thenascended, feeling sickatthe4-metre drop.
Nearing the top, I looked up and saw several gigantic spiders clustered around my only es-
cape. There was nothing for it; I gritted my teeth and sped up through the hole to safety.
The awful truth was that this descent-ascent needed to be undertaken six times a day for
an undefined period of time. We started the pump and realised there was a problem; the
wine was not coming up from the tap below. Feeling sorely cheated at having to face the
trip into the cavern again with nothing achieved, I descended and checked that the tap was
open. John tried the pump again to no avail. We tried with the tap the other way, still no
luck.
It was not going well. Nothing was smooth in our eccentric winery. It was certainly a
winery with character. I was swearing loudly at the pipe by the time John cleared the block-
age by reversing the flow several times.
We took turns to spray the
chapeau
. 'Spray' makes it sound like we were sprinkling liquid
round with a nice light hose but this is far from the truth. The hose was industrial size,
weighed a ton and needed to be carefully aimed and controlled so the jet of wine spread as
evenly as possible. When we finished John valiantly offered to descend into the cavern to
do the necessary and I agreed, somewhat too eagerly.
Thepump-overofGarriguewentmoresmoothly.Iclimbedupanotheroldoakladderonto
Garrigue's 3-metre-tall fibre vat with a sloping top and no safety rails and grabbed onto the
rim of the chimney with one hand and the pipe with the other. John started the pump and
the industrial hose carrying the equivalent of 200 litres a minute leapt to life. I tried to con-
trol it, hold on and pray all at once.
When that ordeal was over we pumped clean water through the pumps and the Kreyer be-
fore tackling the cooling of the sémillon that was now fermenting at a good pace. I hoped
we would avoid this operation while Sean was in hospital but the wine was 20 degrees and
needed to be between 15 and 18. We connected the Kreyer refrigeration unit to the neces-
sary pipes and I turned the switch. The Kreyer refused to start. I imagined Sean's reaction
if 6,000 litres of sémillon went wrong while I was in charge.
I was about to go inside to phone Jamie when he arrived. He quickly set about diagnosing
the problem and was close to admitting defeat when he discovered that the electricians had
changed the polarity on the new board so the Kreyer's fan was turning in the wrong direc-
tion. Minutes later the sémillon was cooling happily and I was beyond grateful.
It was past two o'clock when Lucille arrived as I was making my way across the courtyard
to get some lunch.
'Ça va?'
asked Lucille. 'I came as soon as I could. Did the finger land in the wine?'
