Emails from the roasted slope

Winemaker Chris Mullineux, having made his first harvest at Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards, decided to learn more about working with shiraz in a classic region. He found work at the highly reputed Domaine Clusel Roch in the Rhône valley's northernmost appellation, Côte Rotie - named after the precipitous 'roasted slope' on which the vines grow. The following are extracts from his emailed letters to friends and family back home.

I arrived in Lyon on a scorching summer evening and was picked up by my très relaxed hosts, Gilbert and Brigitte. They have a small domaine in Côte Rôtie - four hectares of syrah (shiraz) and a precious half hectare of viognier in Condrieu, the white-wine appellation just to the south. The cellar is pretty small (under their house), but it's functional and well thought out. I have a chic flat with everything I need adjoined. They've also given me the use of their old van (that looks and goes like Postman Pat's) and bicycle for my stay. I've landed oh, so comfortably with my bum in the butter!

Work has been pretty busy. Normally we'd have started off in the vineyards doing crop thinning, canopy management and de-weeding (they farm organically), but it's been so hot and dry that there's not much growth. A blessing in disguise for me, as I hate de-weeding and get enough of it in Tulbagh! The heat also means the vendange (harvest) is about three weeks early.

Usually, just before vendange the previous year's Condrieu and two-year-old Côte Rôtie is racked and bottled, and we jumped straight into this. It's interesting, much of the Domaine's wine is sold in French restaurants, so quite a bit of it is put in half-bottles. The jobs in a cellar are pretty standard, so I won't bore you with them, but my first - as for all apprentices - was to clean the floors and drains… a kind of trial-by-fire or initiation. It's amazing what can grow in a drain in the space of a year!

Working for a small family is great, as they really take you in and give you an insight into their lives. On the language front, we all decided that my French sucks. Although Gilbert and Brigitte speak pretty good English, and don't seem to mind, I have to improve. Luckily Brigitte used to be a teacher and has taken me under her wing, so I am having French, history and culture lessons. Oui, je suis très heureux!

Everybody has this notion that mealtimes are extended things here, and they are. The food in France is all I expected it to be, and much more. I'm doubly lucky to have Brigitte as a host, as she is a machine in the kitchen - my eyes are open and my brain is in sponge mode whenever she's busy. A standard meal does evolve around baguettes and cheese, but what gets served up in between is never the same and always balanced, colourful and heavenly.
The French are lucky. Their options in terms of ingredients are endless. Every Saturday, one of the oldest and biggest markets in France takes place just over the Rhône, in the streets of Vienne. It's a good place to walk around and be amazed by variety and colour. I reckon in that single market there are more types of bread, olives, fish, meat and veggies than in the whole of South Africa. Everybody's walking around eyeing and sampling things to pick up for the week.

The Rhône River is obviously a BIG part of people's lives here, and much of their competitive and social sport takes part on it. It's ideal as the river is pretty clean this far upstream, wide, and the waters are calm due to the locks controlling the flow. Skiing and fishing are big, and rowing. And another sport (that I have not been brave enough to try yet) called joute - basically jousting on boats. It's really spectacular and skilful. Guillaume, the son of my hosts, is pretty hot at it and easily beats boys much bigger than him. I'm busy watching for techniques to challenge him later!

What else? Well, contrary to popular belief, the French are a particularly clean nation. Before swimming at the local pool everybody showers, and then - horror of horrors - they all jump into Speedos! Its madness - everybody was off to the pool and I came downstairs wearing my baggies. They first looked at me, then at each other and went 'Mon dieu! Non, non, non! Où est votre Speedo?' Apparently it's compulsory. I feigned disappointment and said I'd go swim in the Rhône. This was not to be and they shipped me off to the local sports shop…. In the end (the very end) it wasn't so bad, as I just pretended to be French and strutted around like everyone else. I know a few people who'd fit in pretty well here.

We finished off all the bottling just in time to start harvesting the viognier (Condrieu). There are only four barrels this year - and another with a crazy high sugar level (32° Balling) thanks to all the sorting we did. With all the heat, there were quite a few raisins on the southern (sun-facing) sides of the bunches. We cut the raisins out berry by berry, bunch for bunch and pressed them into a separate barrel. This barrel will simply ferment until the yeast gives up and it will be bottled separately, with a residual sugar to balance out the higher alcohol level. Most French appellations are pretty strict when it comes to tolerated sugar levels, but fortunately Condrieu has no set levels - wines are generally dry, but can be sweeter, or even dessert wines.

We were supposed to have a quiet patch after the viognier harvest, but due to the incessant heat we started with the syrah. Alcohols were at about 13% and the French in this part of the country don't like much more than that! Although the area has a rustic feel, things are done very scientifically. Maturity is carefully monitored - not by simply squeezing a grape, looking at the moon, chewing a stem and saying 'aaah! 'arvest will be hon zee eight September!' A lot of sampling is done and yes, working in some parts of the vineyards is not for the faint-hearted… mountain climbing gear is pretty much needed. Gilbert is like a mountain goat after all the years working here, and I'm slowly finding my feet on the mad lunar slopes - hopefully I won't start an avalanche before I do!

For those of you with romantic ideas about harvest in France - taking a break in the shade of a cherry tree with croissants, cheese, ham and wine ... I can tell you it's all true. Except it's better here with the view of the Rhône winding past in the valley below. It's magic to be part of. The work, though, is tough. Imagine the steepest slope you can possibly scramble up (you only harvest going uphill - it's too steep to go down), and then try carrying two buckets of precious grapes with you. People come back with grazed knees and shins, and they actually get all the harvesters to sign insurance forms.

I haven't talked about the local wine yet. If I wore perfume, mine would be 'Côte Rotie 2001' this summer. It's easily one of the world's most elegant syrahs … structured like a firm, round, velvety pinot noir, but perfumed and spiced like nothing else on earth. The standard Côte Rotie is generally a blend of several parcels from different parts of the slope, and one can drink these wines when younger without being guilty of infanticide. They are also much cheaper than the single vineyard wines which have made the area so famous. These generally come from parcels on the upper (better drained and more rocky) parts of the slopes. They don't open up for at least ten years, so you truly need to be patient. This patience can be well rewarded, and we've tried a few older vintages that have stunned me with their grace and power.

With the viognier of Condrieu though, younger is generally better. The wines are brilliant in their fresh, zesty youth when they have some greenness. Our barrels are just finishing fermentation, and I'm going to miss the aromas of white pears, peaches and ginger that have hung in the cellar since it started.

I miss home and friends and family. It's odd - and after a while boring - to sit at meals and conversations with people and you can only make out 15 percent of what they're saying. They could be aliens for all I know, speaking Martian with a French accent just to fool me. Sometimes I'd prefer trying to work out what a drunk outside the café in Tulbagh is asking me for.

Otherwise life goes well. I eventually tried my hand at joute - in front of a large crowd, and earned much respect for les Africains du Sud (and a night of free drinks for myself) by being knocked into the Rhône only once. Still have to play a game or two of boulle though. The last time was in Calitzdorp at the world's greatest Port festival....

The French aren't as stuck-up as they're made out to be. As long as one shows a bit of enthusiasm, they are very open and interested. They have a lot of respect for South Africa, and ask a lot of questions about how we do things.
On which note - the other evening we had dinner with a dynamic guy who makes a lot of wines, from Côte Rotie to much further south. Most Frenchmen consider themselves connoisseurs, and being a vigneron he was no exception. He buttered us up with many fine wines, and eventually brought out three for dinner. Two brilliant wines from the Languedoc (La Grange des Pères and Le Roc des Anges), but both were stood up by a De Trafford Merlot. Well done, David, my host eventually chose your wine to accompany his dinner … and so did I!