Virgile's Vineyard by Patrick Moon Page A

really more monastic legacy in our wines than in our buildings nowadays.’
    Manu’s thirst-riven features could hardly spell ‘I told you so’ more clearly. Returning to the village square, he would happily knock at the door of any
vigneron
possessed of a bottle and a corkscrew, but Virgile has advised me to look out for the Moulinier family.
    â€˜We’ll have to ask,’ says Manu, hurrying into an impressively comprehensive-looking wine emporium, where he accosts the energetic young man restocking the shelves. ‘Moulinier,’ he barks. ‘Can’t find the blighters anywhere. Just like all the rest – too damn full of themselves to put up a sign! Been looking for hours!’
    â€˜Then look no further,
monsieur
.’ The young man politely offers a business card. ‘Pascal Moulinier. Welcome to our shop.’
    Manu’s discomfiture is only momentary: if a tasting is to be organized before lunchtime, there is no time for apologies. But to his dismay, the youngest of the Moulinier line proposes a preliminary visit to his vineyards.
    â€˜Everyone thought my father was crazy,’ he chuckles, as we head for the countryside. ‘Giving up a solid job with the Customs to try his luck at wine-making. No experience. No money. No vines. Just some long-abandoned hectares of
garrigue
, picked up cheaply because no one else would touch them. In the early eighties, this was. Then a couple of years, just clearing and planting.’
    â€˜Like the medieval monasteries,’ I suggest, with the fellow feeling of a man who really ought to be strimming his own wilderness.
    â€˜Exactly. And just like them, we spent a good few years experimenting to find out what worked where. Did you know the monks would often wait a whole generation to see if land was good enough for wine, before committing themselves to building? Well, here’s our own belated gesture of commitment.’ We are now in the middle of a very muddy building site. ‘By this year’s harvest, we’ll finally have somewhere big enough to house both the family
and
the wines – and right at the heart of our vineyards.’
    His excited confidence is surely belied by the surrounding half-built chaos. Manu taps an impatient foot in the builders’ rubble; he has correctly deduced that there can be little prospect of a tasting here amongst the scaffolding and concrete mixers. But Pascal has mysteries to unfold for us first.
    â€˜How’s your geology?’ he asks unexpectedly.
    â€˜Non-existent,’ I admit.
    â€˜It’s very important in Saint Chinian,’ he enthuses. ‘Well, we think so, anyway. We’ve got perfect examples of the area’s three soils on these slopes here.’ A sweeping gesture encompasses the carefully tended patches of vines alternating with substantial tracts of untamed
garrigue
all around us.
    â€˜Oh, please don’t make him tell us about them!’ reads the thought bubble above Manu’s head, but his prayer is unanswered.
    â€˜Those steep, grey, gravelly slopes behind us are called
schiste
. Slate, I think you say in English. Marvellous, heat-retaining soil, giving vivid, high-definition wines. Over here, a mixture of clay and limestone. More pebbly, producing fuller, softer wines. Wonderful soil again, except when you’re breaking it up for planting. Then finally down here, we’ve got sandstone. Quite rare in St Chinian but fantastic for Grenache …’
    Manu cannot believe that so many vital ‘tasting minutes’ are being sacrificed to this pointless classification of the earth’s crust. ‘Is your old
cave
anywhere near?’ is the closest he gets to subtlety.
    â€˜Just a bit far before lunch,’ comes Pascal’s hammerblow, as Manu’s face crumples so fast I fear I may be about to see a grown Frenchman cry. ‘That’s really why we started our shop. But I tell you what, join me for lunch