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La Provence announced today that the vendange had already started on the right bank of the rhone, it starts today around the corner at Beaumes de Venise. No sign of action as yet in our corner of Cotes du Ventoux. Vignerons we have been speaking to over the last few days have commented that each year the vendange seems to crea,p a day or so earlier in the year irrespective of weather conditions , as sure an indication of global warming as I can think of. Another news item today reported that les vendanges in Alsace had kicked off today for cremant wines roughly three weeks ahead of the norm, an anomaly attributed to exceptional weather back in april/may.And the prognosis for the vintage ?: everyone is not surprisingly talking things up, the unseasonably cool late august weather and the recent rain not withstanding. Bon courage to all our local vignerons..

The courgettes are going crazy in the kitchen garden ..some specimens wouldnt look out of place at the annual Accrington marrow competition. What to do with them…fritters, omellete, fried, vegetarian couscous - all these tried, but I was especially pleased with this recipe of my own invention:

• Make risotto rice in the usual way..sweated onion, garlic, plenty of olive oil, in a stock of water,white wine and saffron.
• Meanwhile in a seperate pan , on a low heat, sweat finely diced courgette and tyme until tender.
• When the rice is just turning creamy combine with the courgettes and dress with a good quality parmesan

Simple but very effective, superior to my taste than those rather sweet squash risottos that were fashionable for a time.

Corinne Couterier is the energetic and well regarded owner of this Cairanne property , one of the Cotes du Rhone Villages AOC’s. The first thing you will notice entering their attractive caveau on a gentle rise facing the Dentelles, is the wide range of wines on offer…the gamme ranges from humble bob vin du pays rose, vdp syrah and mouvedre, through both Rasteau and Cairanne AOC , to a number of old vine special cuvees. Arriving close to the dejeuner hour we only had time to taste the Cairanne white (a fascinating floral , dense number with balancing crisp acidity - unusual cepage of Clairette and Bourboulenc with a seasoning of Roussanne); the 2003 Rasteau , drinking well now, all spice , garrigue and dusty tannins, and the much more structured , concentrated vin du gard that is their Cuvee D’Estevenas, an 80% Grenache with instant appeal but obvious staying power. None of the wines are matured in wood, Corinne is a firm believer in preserving both fruit and terroir by elevating her wines in concrete vats - you cannot argue with the results. Certainly she met the approval of the Revue des Vins tasters earlier this year when they voted her the top Cairanne producer. The other feature of Corinne’s caveau I noted was the availability of older vintages - we could have bought a  vertical tasting case of the Rasteau dating back to 1992. A snip at 65 euro,,,but maybe another day. At around 9 euros the Rasteau or Cairanne here reresent great every day drinking wine value.

..treated ourselves to a lunch yesterday at Gigondas’s “other” restaurant of note : Les Florets. This pretty restaurant doubles as a hotel and occupies a superb location facing the Dentelles above the village. The broad terrace is very charming and just perfect on a sun drenched afternoon. We both took the very reasonable menu de ballade - gazpachio (delicious,. served with a creme fraiche/black olive mix to stir in) and then fillets of loup - bass. We washed these down with a modest white Vacqueras from the Domaine ( Garrigue) owned by the hotel. We will be back…

Lily , bless her , is over the moon to see her old friends from Brighton : Molly and Becky.Quite like old times….here they are in 7th reunion heaven: Jude and I loved the sun-flower people we spotted en-route to Vaison this morning!     

On saturday we treated ourselves to a bit of an outing. We drove up to a village called Grignan which is to the north of Valreas - pretty countryside with lavendar fields but already deadheaded. Our first destination was a place specialising in terracotta tiles ( Jude had high hopes for the kitchen floor) . Found the place easily enough but the visit turned into a major “D” - the owner was surly and generally unhelpful - we left feeling there was something suspicious about the place : was he running the stock down and trying to close the business or something like that? We had no confidence in the place. Next stop was the factory shop of the provencal fragrance company Durance - on the road between Grignan and Montellimar. Better luck here - we bought a number of bedspreads and cushion covers…boutis..at bargain prices and some in the La Madelene magenta - perfect! Lily was very pleased with some rose scented perfume she bought.

At lunchtime we found ourselves in Gigondas and stopped off at L’Oustelet to eat on their pretty terrace in the square. Food was good-ish …a pork dish prepared in melt in the mouth confit style, and some interesting white fish - pageot, sea-bream- served on fennel. Service was excellent and the lunch menu reasonably priced . Puddings included nougat ice cream - lovely. We drank the house ( Gabriel Meffre - Laurus) white Cotes du Rhone by the glass (unusual and welcome initiative) , and Jude had a glass of Meffre’s Beaumes de Venise wih her dessert. Overall a pretty good meal, but we concluded the chef might try harder with his baking- the bread and the madelenes served with the coffee were pretty average, and there was the usual slightly irritating and decidedly old fashioned “over dressing” of the plate in evidence.

In the afternoon we called in at Saint-Gayan the renowned Gigondas producer whose estate borders the village of Sablet. Lovely location, superb view up to the Dentelles , impressive Mas with tasteful shutter colours ( much on our mind at present). We missed Monsieur - Jean-Pierre Meffre - who was dealing with a client but that meant we were fortunate to meet up with the lovely Martine his wife. She expressed lots of interest in our project, explained that Cave visits were not on due to the small space and security issues, offered us a tasting of the red range from Cotes du Rhone, via Rasteau ( one of my favourites having bought many bottles over the years from Yapp brothers) and Gigondas tradicion to their barrique aged special cuvee Gigondas which is called Fontmaria after the well of that name in the most northerly part of thie holding. To my palate the 2003 tradicion is the superior wine and Martine seemed, without in any way denigrating their top cuvee, to agree - she explained that the American market demanded that top producers offer a wine with a “gout de bois” and a smooth texture and Fontmaria performs this role successfully. Before leaving the very kind and charming Martine added two extra bottles to the four I had already bought - an unexpected cadeaux explained as a little extra to mark our first meeting. We left vowing to return soon to buy more wine and get to know the Meffres better.

All in all a good day out …Lily as ever not especially happy to say the least with the car journey and domaine visits but at least she was taken to the river for a spot of swimming after we returned to La Madelene