Making wine ~ and quaffing the results

I make no secret that Pumpjack, aka David, is my very own, personal wine maker. Am I lucky, or what? I’ve detailed our adventures in finding a vineyard after moving here to France, as well as what’s involved in working a vineyard (read back breaking work) ~ see Our Wine page ~ but what you don’t yet know is that he has also gone through the (painful, French) process of becoming a Négociant.

So what is a négociant? It is the French term for a wine merchant who buys everything from grapes to grape must (the mushy in between stage), to wines in various states of completion, often from smaller growers, eg without the where with all of producing and marketing their own wines. Sometimes a vineyard will produce too small a quantity of grapes to make it worthwhile to make a wine, very often as a result of bad weather. This year would be a case in point here in Burgundy. A négociant offers the grower the opportunity to sell his product, a win win situation.

The négociant is not just limited to France either, but can search out grapes, etc. anywhere in Europe. What he does with these findings varies. He may simply sell a wine under his own name, as is the case with our limited ‘Fissure‘ wine, which is not normally available outside of France, or even for that matter its own area. And, as is the case of my personal Oenologist, he is particularly searching out unusual and limited availability grapes and/or wine to blend to form his own amazing wines. (Watch this space for the results in the near future!)

If you would like to know more about this side of our lives, we have a new website www.Terroir-au-Verre.com dedicated to this side of our business. We detail the wines, the process, there’s even geeky bits for those inclined. And… you can even buy our results. So, if you ever wanted truly unique, amazing wines, at affordable prices, that you can’t get just anywhere follow the updates on the site and put in your order. (And watch for their future Members Club so you don’t miss out.)

And now the sun is setting outside my window as I write this, so we know what that means. It’s wine o’clock. Santé.