Virgile's Vineyard: A Year in the Languedoc Wine Country - Hardcover

Moon, Patrick

3.65

81 ratings by Goodreads

9780719562303: Virgile's Vineyard: A Year in the Languedoc Wine Country

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719562309 ISBN 13: 9780719562303

Publisher: John Murray, 2003

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Inheriting a remote and neglected house in the South of France, Patrick Moon sets out to discover how the Languedoc, a wine region so long notorious for mere quantity, has managed to transform itself, in little more than a decade, into one of the world's most exciting vineyards. Among the rich cast of characters he meets during his year of exploration is Virgile, a young local wine-maker who offers to initiate Patrick into the mysteries of each season's work in the fields and in the cellar. Virgile is passionately committed to perfection, though he operates on a shoestring with only a handful of hectares and the smallest cellar imaginable. At the other extreme is Manu, Patrick's dipsomaniac neighbour, a diehard traditionalist producing a private wine-lake of unspeakable rouge. With Manu as his self-appointed guide, Patrick embarks on a quest for the revolution's leading lights - a succession of lively encounters with growers as varied as the wines themselves, from modest one-man bands to the owners of elegant chateaux, with every approach from the very latest in mechanized efficiency to old-fashioned eccentricity. Interwoven with these bucolic expeditions are digressions into the history of the region and its wine-making, from the earliest plantings by the Greeks and Romans to the 19th-century scourge of phylloxera. Meanwhile, the author struggles to deal with his dilapidated inheritance - an unfamiliar and unpredictable world where the brambles have grown as tall as the olive trees, the water supply has just dried up and there is a ferocious animal under the roof tiles.

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Review:

Patrick Moon, who inherited his neglected and remote house in the Languedoc region of southern France, writes with flair ... He is befriended by Virgile, a young local winemaker, who offers to teach him everything he knows about wine-making from the field to the cellar. The result is a fascinating seasonal tour (Daily Mail)

Patrick Moon finds himself living in one of the world's "happening" wine places and there are, as there must be in this sort of book, a good bunch of locals. Unlike the usual enthusiastic refugees from the north, Moon conducts himself with a mixture of surprise and reluctance. Like the wine, everything flows richly and generously from there (Sunday Times)

Rather superior and enjoyably informative ... Moon follows the progress of Virgile, a dedicated if penurious young wine-maker. Manu, a rarely sober producer of the old vinegary school, provides comic relief. In his roundabout way, Moon conveys a host of information about this fascinating corner of France and its main product (Independent)

Full of interesting characters and a fresh view on a fast-evolving region from an outsider who loves wine and is prepared to learn why one bottle, vineyard or estate differs so dramatically from another (Wine Magazine)

When Moon inherits a house in the Languedoc, he has no idea it will lead to a crash course in wine-making and a hilarious introduction to French hospitality ... The story is in turns funny, moving and instructional, with a wisdom that rises from every chapter and glassful. A delightful journal of calamity and discovery (Good Book Guide)

Humane, funny and quirky. (Paul Levy)

Unlike many travel books, this never quite descends to the twee ... Good fun if you don't drink, even more fun if you do (Focus Magazine)

An entertaining account of the Languedoc's "wine revolution". (The Week)

Funny and involving ... Moon's witty banter flows as readily as the wine (Everything France)

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