Chat with Vinny
Good News! Our grape harvests this year are looking really great … in every sense.
We have A LOT of beautiful red and white grapes at La Clarière and also in our English vineyards.
This is my 39th vintage at Château La Clarière, or is it my 58th? 1984 was the first of my own harvests here … after we bought the vineyards from Monsieur and Madame Cassin. But I’d already helped them harvest these vineyards since 1965! Back then, I didn’t dream they’d become ours and I certainly didn’t dream they’d become what they are now.
1984 was a pitiful crop, plus my farmer, Guy, and I were new to it all. We managed to produce only 6 barrels from 3 hectares. And then, we weren’t allowed to call it Castillon or even La Clarière because we’d replanted the whole vineyard. So, our barrels were from three-year-old vines which, back then, were not eligible for appellation status (they are now).
We bottled them nonetheless and I did a small label that looked like a business card (see the photo); it just said ‘Tony Laithwaite Troisieme Feuille, Vin de Table Francais.’ We hand-sold it to those customers who trusted that it was what we told them it was. We still have a few bottles of this vintage, which lie in our museum cellar at La Clarière.
I was writing this at the lunch table (we adhere to our tradition of harvest lunches with the whole team round the chequered oilcloth table, no matter how grubby and sticky with grape-juice we are). I wondered aloud how the ‘84 tasted now and was surprised when Vincent, the vineyard manager just upped and fetched a bottle. The cork just about came out OK … and we all enjoyed it. It has less vigour and colour than the young vintages but then, so have I. But we are both still pleasant company at the table, I like to think.
It’s a very gentle wine ... not sure how strong because we weren’t allowed to put its ABV on the label. It’s faded with age … but then it’s always been a light wine. Today’s bottle demonstrated how even light wines from our vineyards are remarkably long-lived. It’s the limestone ridge that does it. The one we share with the better class of Saint-Emilions. It gives the wines a really solid structure … they last and last.
I’m now writing this in the winery office as the grapes are arriving ten feet away. In the past I’d have been leaping about sorting grapes, cleaning baskets or one of the other less-skilled jobs. Now I just sit on the old sofa not daring to touch any part of this well-oiled, efficient operation. Here comes the next trailer, hydraulics hissing to tilt and disgorge a very slow stream of grapes into the sorter where hundreds of little wheels sort out the perfect grapes from the bits of leaf, stalks and even rosebuds (from the bushes that decorate the ends of our vine rows … roses look nice but don’t taste so good).
Old Jean Claude, who retired last year, is back tending the machine, washing it down lovingly between every arrival. Where’s this lot from? “’le Blaireau’, a plot we call ‘The Badger’ because … well, that’s where he lives.”
“Des raisins … il-y-on a!” says the driver, impressed with us; he works on other estates. I’m not going to risk jinxing the rest of the récolt but if you’ve ever wanted to buy extra La Clarière for your friends, 2023 might be the vintage to do just that.
I go out and up the stairs to the catwalk around the tops of our tanks; the original three, and now 37 more … all being filled! I can’t believe it. I really can’t. It’s all down to Jean Marc, Vincent, the team … and our Confrères who got us started and continue to make it possible. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart … from the top of our tanks.
