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Landscape: portrait
Feb. 26th, 2006 08:11 pmOn the Saturday of our stay in France, we drove up to Angoulême cross-country, in pursuit of wine. You are never far from habitation in the Charente, and the landscape is curvaceous, all small hills and and winding roads, so that the perspective constantly offers fresh glimpses of hilltop villages, a farm sloping down the side of the valley, here a perfect miniature chateau which might have been built from Lego, there a high walled enclosure, behind whose arched gates there lives a propsperous viticulteur.
It is intensely cultivated country, though in winter it is hard to guess what will be grown in the ploughed fields. Occasionally there's a field of stalks which are identifiable as maize, a few cows wandering in a patch of woodland, once a couple of sheep in someone's garden, a flock of lapwings grazing peacefully in a field, their quiffs profiled clearly against the grass or the sky, and every now and then a few rows of vines.
As we came closer to Cognac, the vineyards became larger and more frequent. The plantings were of all ages: a couple of rows of new baby grafts still in their protective tubes, a gathering of spindly young vines like gangling adolescents, draping their shoots along the wires, gnarled old vines hunkered low to the ground - and the variety was increased by the different choices that had been made about the pruning.
Segonzac proclaimed itself the Capital of the Fine Champagne - not the main town of cognac production, which is Cognac itself, but the main town of the finest area for cognac. There was an entire still displayed on a gable end at the entry to the town, to reinforce the message. But the Maison des Maines, whose wine we had enjoyed with our lunch a few days earlier was closed. So we drove on to Hiersac, where the Cave Co-op had been recommended by our friend Helen. And by the time we found the Cave, the snow was setting in seriously.
It is intensely cultivated country, though in winter it is hard to guess what will be grown in the ploughed fields. Occasionally there's a field of stalks which are identifiable as maize, a few cows wandering in a patch of woodland, once a couple of sheep in someone's garden, a flock of lapwings grazing peacefully in a field, their quiffs profiled clearly against the grass or the sky, and every now and then a few rows of vines.
As we came closer to Cognac, the vineyards became larger and more frequent. The plantings were of all ages: a couple of rows of new baby grafts still in their protective tubes, a gathering of spindly young vines like gangling adolescents, draping their shoots along the wires, gnarled old vines hunkered low to the ground - and the variety was increased by the different choices that had been made about the pruning.
Segonzac proclaimed itself the Capital of the Fine Champagne - not the main town of cognac production, which is Cognac itself, but the main town of the finest area for cognac. There was an entire still displayed on a gable end at the entry to the town, to reinforce the message. But the Maison des Maines, whose wine we had enjoyed with our lunch a few days earlier was closed. So we drove on to Hiersac, where the Cave Co-op had been recommended by our friend Helen. And by the time we found the Cave, the snow was setting in seriously.
