After the encouragement of my reader(see Truffles galore) there will be no stopping me now!

I could probably  just write about wine for the rest of this year but that would be even more boring than my usual outpourings. But wine does dominate the landscape and the economy down here. There are of course farmers who produce wonderful goat and sheep’s cheese,producers of honey,olives, and fruit,but farmers of vines dominate,and without getting too sophisticated about it all,it is farming. Moreover they are almost without exception lovely people with a profound knowledge of their “terroir”,their soil and micro-climate,and a passion to produce fantastic wine.

One of the great joys of living here is to be able to go and buy wine from the person who produced it,to discuss with them its qualities and peculiarities,rather than slipping down to the local supermarket and picking a bottle off a shelf. For me that is an important element in the enhanced quality of life here in France.

So where to begin?Perhaps at the Château de Coujan  out in the country near Murveil-les-Béziers.François Guy was one of the instigators of the great push to produce quality wines in this area some twenty years ago. He was a lovely man, a great favourite of my daughter’s,who sadly died last year at the age of 90,upright and twinkling to the end. Now his charming daughter  Florence runs the domaine which produces some of my favourite wines,full details of which can be found on the website.(website www.chateau-coujan.com)

A little further inland in the village of Fos,  the domaine Ollier Taillefer run by another lovely lady,Françoise, and her brother Alain produce some of the best red wines in the area. (www.olliertaillefer.com)

My current favourite white wine comes from the Chartreuse de Mougère down the road towards Pézenas.This is a Muscat sec, a dry wine as the name implies but with a subtle flavour of the grape.(chartreuse-de-mougeres.com)

And for summer lunchtime quaffing there is nothing better than the reduced alcohol(9%) Plume rosé from the domaine de la Colombette near Béziers (www.lacolombette.fr) If you have doubts about reduced alcohol wine ,don’t.This is a light fruity mouthful which will not knock you out for the rest of the day and can be drunk copiously without fear.

Enough for now. If you really want to read about local wine ,the lovely Rosemary George,a Master of Wine,writes knowledgeably about it on the  www.heraultwhatson.info website,run by the excellent and exuberant Robin Hicks.