VENDAGE - Marseillan and Meze in the Languedoc
Yesterday we went down to Marseillan to restock our drinks cupboard. It is home of the drink Noilly Prat, the rouge and blanc varieties (sweet and dry) are quite readily available in supermarkets, but I had finished the bottle of Ambre which is difficult to come by so off we went to the distillerie in this nice little town close to the coast. We hadn't visited Marseillan in years, and now twice in one year, I was there in February to sketch.
As we went down into the lowlands the mountains give way to the fields of vines, starting at Babeau Bouldeau, (great name for a place to live), just before you come to St.Chinian the centre of our nearest appellation. (St.Chinian currently making the most of CNN's claim that it is bizarrely in the top 5 places to live in the world, I wonder where the other 4 are? they have a large banner across the main street proclaiming this fact, so it must be true). As you proceed and approach Beziers the field of vines get bigger, the land is almost flat and this is, I guess more of a plonk producing area, and as yet no sign of harvesting.
Finally as you get nearer to the coast on the other side of Beziers, we started to view the funny little tractors designed to fit between the rows of vines, then the small grape collecting version of a combine harvester and finally the guys trundling along to the Cave Cooperatives with the grapes piled in trailers behind their usually archaic tractors. Not a single hand picker in sight, far,far,far from the romantic image I had held in my head for the many years. I always had to leave the Languedoc for Northern Ireland to be back for the start of term and work in september. I had visualised swathes of people crossing the fields gathering in the crop, much as you see tea pickers at work - but you probably find that is another myth that has been replaced by automation. I did view some hand pickers once, 3 or 4 motley men in a large field getting about their business, again my romantic, artistic mind had colourful families and healthy tanned, beautiful young people toiling with smiles on their faces, happy banter exchanged, and joyfully laughing as they stretched their sore backs and mopped a bead of perspiration from their brow, before sitting down to the huge picnic spread at the edge of the field to drink and be merry - yeah right.
The last appellation before you get to our destinations of Marseillan and Meze is the crisp white Picpoul de Pinet. So now you can see where we were heading on the map, and the blue blob which is the Etang de Thau to the right of Pinet.
Purchases completed in Marseillan - they also had an extra dry Noilly for sale which we'll sample tonight as our aperitif, we moved on to Meze, somewhere we had never been before.
I find it very hard to like the littoral area of the Herault and Aude, as I keep saying it's flat, the towns and villages sprawl with lotissements on every side (housing estates), these aren't particularly attractive due to the local desire for privacy which means walls around most houses a couple of metres high, and although the houses can be attractive the owners don't seem to care in many cases about the state of these walls and unrendered badly built breeze blocks are often in evidence. The Herault river reaches the sea and it has become a lovely colour in its final stage, now it is attractive.
So that's it, the last day of Summer (quite hazy), tomorrow is the 1st. September but summery weather will continue for a while, next week we are off to visit Arcachon, hopefully the sun will shine for our next seaside trip.
As we went down into the lowlands the mountains give way to the fields of vines, starting at Babeau Bouldeau, (great name for a place to live), just before you come to St.Chinian the centre of our nearest appellation. (St.Chinian currently making the most of CNN's claim that it is bizarrely in the top 5 places to live in the world, I wonder where the other 4 are? they have a large banner across the main street proclaiming this fact, so it must be true). As you proceed and approach Beziers the field of vines get bigger, the land is almost flat and this is, I guess more of a plonk producing area, and as yet no sign of harvesting.
Finally as you get nearer to the coast on the other side of Beziers, we started to view the funny little tractors designed to fit between the rows of vines, then the small grape collecting version of a combine harvester and finally the guys trundling along to the Cave Cooperatives with the grapes piled in trailers behind their usually archaic tractors. Not a single hand picker in sight, far,far,far from the romantic image I had held in my head for the many years. I always had to leave the Languedoc for Northern Ireland to be back for the start of term and work in september. I had visualised swathes of people crossing the fields gathering in the crop, much as you see tea pickers at work - but you probably find that is another myth that has been replaced by automation. I did view some hand pickers once, 3 or 4 motley men in a large field getting about their business, again my romantic, artistic mind had colourful families and healthy tanned, beautiful young people toiling with smiles on their faces, happy banter exchanged, and joyfully laughing as they stretched their sore backs and mopped a bead of perspiration from their brow, before sitting down to the huge picnic spread at the edge of the field to drink and be merry - yeah right.
The last appellation before you get to our destinations of Marseillan and Meze is the crisp white Picpoul de Pinet. So now you can see where we were heading on the map, and the blue blob which is the Etang de Thau to the right of Pinet.
I find it very hard to like the littoral area of the Herault and Aude, as I keep saying it's flat, the towns and villages sprawl with lotissements on every side (housing estates), these aren't particularly attractive due to the local desire for privacy which means walls around most houses a couple of metres high, and although the houses can be attractive the owners don't seem to care in many cases about the state of these walls and unrendered badly built breeze blocks are often in evidence. The Herault river reaches the sea and it has become a lovely colour in its final stage, now it is attractive.
Unfortunately the luscious turquoise green colour of the river doesn't come across, here at the Roman bridge near St.Thibery.
Meze was OK, as with Marseillan there is a little inlet port area surrounded by café restaurants of not astounding but adequate quality to satisfy visitors. There is the standard marina, i.e. car park for boats, marina is too idyllic a name to put to these places. Marseillan is definetly the prettier town centre of the two, a little more well heeled. Meze has a bit more of a working town vibe to it, an area of fishing nets edges the etang, whether these are all still in use or just for a show I'm not sure as grass and weeds were growing amongst them in one area. I believe the mussels in the etang are inedible this summer due to pollution so maybe fishing has been at a standstill too for a while. There was a large gathering of folk taking petanque very seriously, again making the place seem less like a touristy spot and more a real community. Yet again I was disappointed to find - having set off in both directions along the coast, there was no coastal path to walk along, there seemed to be a further area of authentic fishing harbour but that required covering the edge of a large scrubby carpark with no sign of any path on the opposite side. (I should have done some prior research.) So an OK day out, but no need to revisit, where to next?
Jousting boats in the harbour - which led to the question - what's a sheep doing on the village (a fishing village) crest? In internet hasn't provided an answer. But we had made up our own story of the plucky little sheep, the last of a starving herd, that led his weak master down from the perilous mountains to the plentiful ocean, saving his life, and so is celebrated as the founder of Meze.
Jolly spotty boat and rather unhappy fish in Meze.
Just to finish - Noilly Prat sketches from earlier in the year.
Comments
Post a Comment