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Lauragais Blog

Winemaking the Scottish way

25/1/2020

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The historic Château de Mayragues near Gaillac is an ideal place to learn about natural wines. Biodynamic since 1999, organic since 2004, the vineyards are now run by Duncan Geddes, a second-generation Scottish winemaker (his French mother may see things differently).
Thank you, Duncan, for a fascinating discussion yesterday about your philosophy of winemaking. Because of wonderful people like you, researching my new book about the gastronomy of our region is proving much more taxing than writing about its history. All these dégustations are beginning to take their toll!
The Château de Mayragues dates from the 16th and 17th centuries and, along with its dovecote, it is classified as a historic monument. You can spend the night in the château – something I would recommend to anyone who wishes to sample all Duncan’s wines.
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Who were the two dead soldiers?

11/1/2020

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The Château de Garrevaques lies in the Lauragais, south-west France, and one day the owner shared a memory from her childhood, something that had happened a few years after the end of the second world war.
‘When I was old enough to run around in the grounds of the château my grandmother used to tell me never to play in one particular corner of the garden. A pair of iron crosses marked the graves of two German soldiers. When I was twelve or thirteen, the German army came and took them away.’
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Marie-Christine Combes is the sixteenth generation of the same family to reside in the château, and this was one of many stories I had heard from her and her mother about the period when the Wehrmacht commandeered their home. I had often wondered about the identity of these soldiers, and no one seemed quite sure of their unit. Some sources said the troops occupying Garrevaques were from the eleventh panzer division, while others claimed they belonged to the infamous second panzer division, also known as Das Reich, and blamed for the atrocity at Oradour-sur-Glane. I had often speculated that this confusion was caused by the French way of abbreviating ordinal numbers: IIeme (deuxième - second) and 11eme (onzième - eleventh) are easy to confuse unless you spot that one uses Roman numerals and the other Arabic.
When I was researching the German Occupation for my book, I felt duty-bound to investigate more thoroughly. Garrevaques and my home lie in the Tarn, and the obvious place to start was in the departmental archives in Albi. But first, I went online to consult the list of dossiers which had not been digitised. From its title, 506 W 230 sounded promising: ‘German soldiers killed and buried in the department. Inquest: instructions and replies from the mayors (November-December 1944).’
The archives of the Tarn are run on strict and rather old-fashioned lines. Once you become an authorised user, you must fill in a form with the references of the dossiers you want to consult and you must hand in your request at the desk at 09.30 sharp, or subsequently at 45-minute intervals, again on the dot. And then you wait. Don’t even think of going to the desk with a request at 09.46 or 11.33!
I handed in my form, and while I waited, I wondered how many pages would be in the dossier. There are 323 communes in the Tarn, each with a mayor. If German soldiers were buried in all of them, I could be sifting through a lot of paperwork. Eventually I was called to the desk and handed a bundle of papers secured in a dogeared cardboard folder. I opened it up. Fortunately, there were only a couple of dozen pages so presumably the soldiers in Marie-Christine’s park had been an exception. The paper was fragile, the type of paper that is produced after five years of enemy occupation and world war.

​I leafed through the sheets, still unconvinced I would find what I wanted. But then it appeared, an A5 scrap of paper, handwritten, signed by the mayor of Garrevaques and addressed to the Prefect of the Tarn. Someone had annotated the paper with the French translations of the date of birth, date of death and rank of each of the two men. And on the next page in the dossier the Prefect’s office had typed up the details, saving me the trouble of deciphering the mayor’s handwriting. In the interests of brevity, I shall give only the English translation of what was on the two pieces of paper.
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TK de Dinatru 61, Sergeant Hilmar Büchner, born 18/2/1917, died 19/8/1944.
FEB 119, Lance-Corporal Alvis Gatuska, born 9/6/1913, died 19/8/1944.

This date of their deaths tied in with what I had read elsewhere. On 19 August, members of an unidentified Resistance group machine-gunned a German vehicle and killed two of its occupants on the road between Garrevaques and Revel. The wreck was towed back to the Château de Garrevaques, and the two casualties were buried in the park by their comrades.
I was still none the wiser on the question of second or eleventh, but after further research, I discovered that ‘TK de Dinatru 61’ was a supply troop division forming part of the eleventh panzers, and ‘FEB 119’ was an artillery regiment, again part of the eleventh panzers. I also learned that the eleventh panzer division had fought for two-and-a-half years on the Eastern Front and was nearly wiped out in early 1944 at the Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket. The demoralised survivors were sent to south-west France and the division was rebuilt, mainly with reserve troops.
After the shooting of Sergeant Büchner and Lance-Corporal Gatuska, the villagers feared reprisals, but fortunately the Germans had more pressing business to occupy them. Four days earlier, the Allies had begun landing 50,000 troops on the coast near Marseilles and on 20 August the eleventh panzer division left Garrevaques and headed east to meet the Allies in the Rhône valley.
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Château de Garrevaques.
The occupying troops turned this salon into their dining room and repla
ced the mirror with a portrait of Adolf Hitler.
If you want to know how they tried to blow up the château as they left, or read stories about their operations against the Corps Franc de la Montagne Noire, you will find them in ‘Lauragais: Steeped in History, Soaked in Blood’, or if you visit the château’s hotel-restaurant, you may be lucky enough to hear some of these tales from Marie-Christine herself. 
Why do Sergeant Büchner and Lance-Corporal Gatuska no longer lie in the park? Between 1958 and 1961, nearly 20,000 German soldiers were disinterred all across southern France and reburied together in the cemetery at Dagneux near Lyon. Most of them were killed after the Allied landings of August 1944.
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Natural wines - lining up my work for the day

16/12/2019

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Monday morning at the office isn’t always so bad! My task today is to continue exploring the world of natural wines. What’s that? you may ask. I spent yesterday afternoon trying to find out at the Glouglou natural wine fair in Durban-Corbières. Most of the exhibitors were certified organic, but they have all gone much further in their quest to minimise the artificial techniques used in most modern wine production. 
​Take Gilles Contrepois of the Domaine Grand Guilhem, for example. He has been organic since 2004, but to make his wine Le Pointilliste, he ferments hand-picked grapes in clay pots using only the natural yeasts which live on his vines and grapes, and he adds no, or minimal, sulphites. It’s a fair imitation of the practices used by the world’s first winemakers in the Caucasus 8,000 years ago, although Gilles doesn’t take authenticity to the extreme of burying his clay pots in the ground.
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​For others, such as Florian and Gaelle at the Domaine des Deux Clés, it means following the biodynamic principles of Rudolf Steiner. These include taking account of solar and lunar cycles, and using homeopathic preparations to improve the health of their soil and vines.
​Jon and Elizabeth Bowen are an English couple who have been making organic wine in the Corbières since 2008. Jon told me he avoids using the term ‘natural wine’ because it has no official or generally-agreed definition. But he still calls one of his wines Pourboire Nature because, ‘There is nothing added. And nothing means no sulphur dioxide, no yeast, no tannins, no enzymes, no fining agents.’
​All the exhibitors I spoke to at Glouglou agreed on one thing: being outside the constraints of an appellation gives them the freedom to be different. The flavours of their wines were certainly more intense and more varied than I have experienced at more conventional wine fairs. 
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​Glouglou translates as glug-glug, but it was a much more sophisticated event than its name may suggest. It took place at Chez Lola, a mansion which on other days offers bed-and-breakfast. Upstairs, each bedroom had a couple of winemakers somewhere between the bed and the wardrobe, and on the ground floor, the lounge and dining room hosted eight more producers. The kitchen served quiche, cake, coffee, tea or water for anyone who was hungry or needed to cleanse his or her palette. It was a relaxed, homely environment, perfect for the discovery of natural wines, whatever they may be.
Will I have come up with a clearer definition by the time I have cleared my desk?
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Climb every mountain (or the same one again and again and again)

5/12/2019

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The Berniquaut, south-west France, is a modest mountain above Sorèze that has been frequented by Stone Age man, Celts, Romans, crusaders, bandits, and most recently by a couple of friends of Asterix the Gaul. None of the ancients were crazy enough to run up and down it fifteen times in six hours. Thirty kilometres, 3,000 metres of climbing, 3,000 metres of descent, tired legs. All for charity.
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Photo by Aline Berthoumieu
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In Sorèze with two of my latest readers

2/12/2019

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Yesterday I was signing and selling copies of ‘Lauragais’ at the Christmas market in the Abbey of Sorèze. I also had time to photograph some of my latest readers.

Mary takes a keen interest in modern literature, whereas her master Tom is more into buying and selling antique and rare books.
If you share Mary’s literary tastes, choose the first link, or if you are in Tom’s camp, follow the link to his page on Abe Books.
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The Abbey of Sorèze may have been founded as long ago as 754 under King Pepin the Short. It was attacked and pillaged many times over the centuries by, among others, the Normans, bands of unemployed soldiers during the Hundred Years’ War, and both Catholics and Protestants during the Wars of Religion. Louis XVI made it a Royal Military School, and it remained an educational establishment until 1991.
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This statue of Pepin the Short is located in the  abbey's park.
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This bell tower is all that remains of the church of Saint-Martin after the Protestant siege of 1573.
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Also in the abbey's park is a rare statue of Louis XVI. Only five remain in France, and one of those has lost its original head!
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Today, the abbey complex houses the Dom Robert tapestry museum and the school museum.
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Local authors unite at the cracker fair

25/11/2019

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Last weekend I joined a group of eight other local authors to share a large stand at the Cracker Fair Christmas Market. Anglais et français, tous ensemble, and all talk of Brexit strictement interdit !
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This annual event takes place in the historic Abbey of Valmagne near the town of Sète on the Mediterranean coast. Founded by the Benedictines in 1138, the abbey was taken over by the Cistercians twenty years later and remained in their hands until the Revolution.
It was saved in 1791 by a certain Monsieur Granier-Joyeuse who used the abbey’s church as a wine store. Enormous barrels over two metres in diameter remain in place to this day, but unfortunately for us writers, we were sent far from temptation to the cloisters. This turned out to be a blessing because it meant we could concentrate on selling our books in a beautiful, naturally-lit setting, and in the occasional quiet moment, enjoy the garden.
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If you missed this year’s event, make a note in your diary for mid-November 2020. 
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Where three French generals rest in peace

15/11/2019

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How many generals are buried in your local graveyard? I have found three in mine, all from the same family!
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I did not discover my three General Reys while wandering among the grandiose funerary monuments in the Catholic cemetery of Puylaurens, south-west France. Instead, I found them buried in the Protestant graveyard, hidden away on the steep northern slopes of town like a guilty family secret. Resting alongside them are other relatives, including a Colonel Rey who was killed in May 1940 in the north of France when he tried to stop German tanks with his cavalry regiment. As one of the survivors noted, ‘Poor us with our horses!’
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But back to the generals. Jean and Louis were brothers, both born in Puylaurens in the 1860s. Louis survived two world wars and died peacefully in 1960 at the age of 94. His brother was less fortunate. Throughout the Great War, Brigadier-General Jean Rey commanded the 5th brigade of dragoons. On the day of the armistice he was still alive, but he died five weeks later on 17 December 1918 from an illness he had contracted during the war.
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For me, it was their grandfather who had the most fascinating career. Jean-Pierre Antoine Rey (1767-1842) fought in dozens of Napoleonic battles across Europe, including Arcole Bridge, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau and Vitoria. His last fight was down the road at the Battle of Toulouse in 1814, where he had a truly disastrous day (too long to explain here: either read Captain Edouard Lapène’s ‘Evènements Militaires devant Toulouse en 1814’ published in French in 1822, or Colin Duncan Taylor’s ‘Lauragais: Steeped in History, Soaked in Blood’ published in English in 2018). 
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Public domain work sourced from Wikipedia. 
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Original painting by Henri Louis Dupray, c.1890. 
During Napoleon’s exile to Elba, General Rey was given a knighthood by Louis XVIII and appointed military commander for the department of Basses-Pyrénées (now called Pyrénées-Atlantique). He remained in post during Napoleon’s Hundred Days, but after Waterloo he was placed on the reserve list. Under Louis-Philippe, he was appointed military commander of several other departments until his retirement in 1832.
If you come to Puylaurens, as well as visiting the Protestant graveyard, you can spend the night in the Rey’s family home. Anny Lapeyre offers bed-and-breakfast in the fine old building she has renamed Maison Rey, and while you are enjoying your croissant and morning coffee, you can admire the Protestant temple next door and the gate of the Protestant Academy that was closed by Louis XIV in 1685. 
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Cracker Fair 2019

12/11/2019

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Abbaye de Valmagne,
34560 Villeveyrac
​

23 - 24 November 2019
​from ​10h-18h


The perfect place to find all your Christmas presents!
I am sharing a stand with eight other authors offering a range of English-language books (Le Cloître Nord, Stands CN4-CN6), and there are over 200 other exhibitors. Come and get into the festive spirit!
Find out more
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The French concept of laïcité

27/10/2019

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I live close to one of Europe’s most-travelled pilgrimage routes – the road to Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle. This proximity has often made me toy with the idea of making a pilgrimage of my own, but frankly, it’s a long, long way to the wild western coast of Spain. Last weekend I had the opportunity of making a much shorter pilgrimage – less than three hundred metres from my front door. How could I resist such an easy alternative?
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The hill above my village has been graced by a life-sized effigy of Christ on a seven-metre-high cross since 1943. Usually I can see if from my kitchen window, but for over a year, the skyline has been empty. In a winter storm, the cross fell, and Jesus broke his arm. The original cross was the initiative of a local priest, Julien Salles. He believed it would watch over Saint-Sernin-les-Lavaur during the German Occupation. Since then, it has often been the other way around, and the villagers have had to watch over the cross. ​
Anyone who climbs up the steep hillside to our cross can enjoy a magnificent panorama of the Lauragais, the Montagne Noire and the Pyrenees. Towards the end of the 10th century, there was a motte and bailey castle up there. One major disadvantage of such an elevated position, particularly if you are a wooden cross, is its exposure to all the winds and rains that nature has to offer. Despite this, the solid oak construction of 1943 lasted forty years. The faithful erected a new one in August 1983. In 2009, the cross was felled once more. This time, the mairie decided to bury the base of a new wooden cross inside a concrete plinth, but that did not stop the wood from rotting, and a decade later I looked out of my kitchen window one morning and thought, where’s the cross?
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So there we were on 19 October 2019, almost the whole village gathered outside the church ready to start our pilgrimage. The mayor gave us a short historical resumé, then off we went. The intrepid attacked the hill by its shortest, steepest route, the majority took a longer path around the back, and the infirm were ferried to the top in a couple of 4x4s.
For a pilgrimage, there was a disappointing lack of religious representation. When I reached the top, I was expecting at least a priest, or even a nun or two. Instead, we were simply a gathering of villagers celebrating the rebuilding of our most notable and most noticeable monument. And a fine sight it now makes: Jesus has been re-armed and firmly attached to a sturdy new cross of galvanised steel. This one should outlast the Eiffel Tower.
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After a photocall, the assembly headed back down to the village. A pause at the church would perhaps have been in keeping with the spirit of a pilgrimage, but instead the mayor led us all to the Salle des Fêtes for a different kind of spirit: whiskey or pastis, accompanied by a celebratory buffet.
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Over a glass I reflected that my short pilgrimage was a good illustration of the French concept of laïcité – the strict separation of civil society and religious society. The mairie can pay for the upkeep of the village church, repair fallen crosses, and provide a good buffet, but it must not involve itself in religious practices such as entering a place of worship.
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Overdosing on châteaux

18/10/2019

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If you like visiting ruined châteaux, then a real treat awaits you in the valley of the Orbiel. Drive twenty minutes north from Carcassonne and you will reach the village of Lastours. Red and gold Occitan flags flutter from lampposts alongside the river, and high on a ridge above the village, four separate châteaux stand in a line: Cabaret, Tour Régine, Surdespine and Quertinheux.
A few days ago, it was my birthday, and I decided to make another trip to this stunning location with my wife. We paid the €8 entry fee and I was soon reminded that this is an energetic visit requiring a good level of fitness.
The hillside is riddled with caves, and one of them provided us with an unusual entrance to the main site. A 35-metre long tunnel called le trou de la cite took us through the side of the mountain, and when we emerged at the far end, we were able to enjoy our first full view of the four châteaux. They stand in a line atop a rugged hillside dotted with cypress trees. 
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During the Albigensian Crusade, this part of Occitanie was the home of two Cathar lords: Pierre-Roger de Cabaret and his brother Jourdain. After the fall of Carcassonne in 1209, the brothers provided a safe haven for Cathars and dispossessed knights. Together they carried out numerous attacks on the crusaders and their supply trains. 
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By 1211, Pierre-Roger de Cabaret realised that he was too isolated to resist indefinitely and he negotiated surrender terms with Simon de Montfort: he would give up his possessions at Cabaret/Lastours in exchange for a quiet life on an estate near Béziers. Both sides respected the agreement until the death of Simon de Montfort in 1218 prompted the Cabaret brothers to return home. Before long, they were once again sheltering communities of heretics within their walls, including the Cathar bishop for the Carcassès. During the second, royal, phase of the Albigensian Crusade, the Cabarets found themselves besieged once again. They resisted for two years, but in 1229 they surrendered and the king’s seneschal, Humbert de Beaujeu, destroyed their châteaux and villages.
Like many visitors to Lastours, I was disappointed to learn that the four ruins I was visiting had nothing to do with the Cabarets or the Cathars. They were all built during the 1230s to create a royal fortress that was garrisoned up until the time of the Revolution. So where did Pierre-Roger and Jourdain de Cabaret live? Probably in a fifth, older château lower down on the north-western slope of the mountain. ​
Below it, a medieval village was constructed on terraces which led all the way down to the banks of the Grésilhou. During the last thirty years, this village has been gradually excavated by archaeologists, and visitors can wander around the foundations of houses, stables, a forge and other buildings. In some homes, the archaeologists found the remains of the occupants’ last meal, half-burned firewood in the hearth and various household items which led them to conclude that the village had abandoned in a moment of panic, probably when the Cabaret brothers surrendered in 1229.
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​When we had finished trudging up and down the steep, rocky slopes, we rounded off our visit with a light lunch just outside the museum entrance.

​Le Diable au Thym is a cafe whose food comes out of the same kitchen as the Michelin-starred restaurant next door. It was my birthday, but we didn’t want to break the bank.
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​If Lastours isn’t enough to satisfy your appetite for castles, more ruined pleasures await you further up the valley of the Orbiel. Climb the grassy terraces of the Château de Mas-Cabardès, take a peek at the Château de Roquefère (now a private residence), marvel at the surprisingly extensive ruins of a thirteenth-century church abandoned in the middle of nowhere, and finally, seven kilometres further up the valley from Lastours, climb the castle mound at Miraval-Cabardés, once the home of a famous troubadour, Raimon de Miraval, who wrote love songs about the wives of Pierre-Roger and Jourdain de Cabaret.
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    Colin Duncan Taylor, author of ‘Lauragais: Steeped in History, Soaked in Blood’, passionate about this undiscovered corner of south-west France.

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