An Agreeable Beverage

It is October, and in the grape-rich countryside around Avignon this year’s harvest is nearly over. Only the occasional near-collision is still caused by a farmer trundling his tractor full of grapes down a narrow country road, oblivious to oncoming traffic, speed-limits and timetables-or indeed to any table but the one in his own farmhouse kitchen. The wines of this region are good ones; at the towns of Séguret, Sablet and Vacquéras, there are robust Côtes du Rhône-Villages; at Gigondas the deep almost black-red wines frequently rival all but the most outstanding (but much more celebrated) Châteauneuf-du-Pape; and west of Avignon both Lirac and Tavel produce potent rosés. A bottle of Tavel may no longer cost the sixpence it did in Tobias smollett’s days in the late eighteenth century, but neither is it still mixed with pigeon’s dung and quick lime.