La Gare du Vin Wine Club

Mais oui.....

you can still get your Gare du Vin Membership case of wine in time for Christmas.

Just click here to purchase your membership ticket - Aller Simple, Aller Retour or why not treat yourself to the luxury of Première Classe.

Order before the 15th December for delivery before Christmas.

Membership is annual and includes a mixed case of 6 bottles of wine for aller-simple passengers, 12 bottles for aller-retour passengers and 24 of the finest and rarest for Première Classe.  

Membership entitles you to a whole lot of other goodies too, including a discount on future on-line orders and priority reservations for special events.

If you do not live in the UK but would be interested in joining the club please contact me by email

Katie's Christmas Wines

Which of my wines will I be enjoying this Christmas? I've got a super selection lined up for all the festivities... I can't wait to tuck in!  All these wines are in the Gare du Vin Membership case - find out more here

Les Perles de Jones Macabeu 2014

A sumptuous off dry white reminiscent of ripe pears and honeysuckle, which makes it the perfect partner to roast turkey with chestnut stuffing.  It will also pair well with sweet root vegetable such as carrots and parsnips. 

Les Perles de Jones Macabeu can be served as an aperitif with devils on horse back or with a starter of garlic sautéed prawns or a classic prawn cocktail.  It can also cope with slightly spicy food such as a turkey curry or a Thai green curry.

If you don’t finish off the bottle by the time you get to the end of the meal, then this wine also makes for a great alternative to a red with the cheese board.

Les Perles de Jones Carignan Gris

Vintage 2013/2014

The fresh, crispness of the rare Carignan Gris grape makes it a very versatile wine on the Christmas table.  It will go with a wide range of dishes including Whitby oysters, wild mushroom paté, or fish dishes such as sole with a lemon butter sauce or pan-fried scallops with a squeeze of lime.  Les Perles de Jones Carignan Gris will also cut through heavier creamy dishes such as fisherman’s pie.

Domaine Jones Grenache Gris

Vintage 2013/2014

This is a definite must with the traditional Christmas turkey.  The wine has a subtle herbal side to it, which will complement herb stuffing.  Domaine Jones Grenache Gris will also go extremely well with smoked salmon especially if there is a béarnaise sauce or a sprig of fresh dill.   The wine is made in an area of France called the Fennouilledes as wild fennel can be found in the hedgerows surrounding the vineyards.  There is a subtle hint of fennel in the wine, so if you have slow roasted fennel on your Christmas menu this is a must.

Les Perlesde Jones Carignan 2013

The bad boy grape of the Languedoc from our 100 year old vines makes a fantastic alternative to more traditional red wines such as Chateauneuf du Pape.  This wine with its fresh lively energy will be perfect with roast duck.  On Christmas Eve it will be perfect with a hearty beef stew, boeuf carottes or beef wellington.  This wine will also partner venison steaks and other powerful game dishes such a pigeon pie.

Domaine Jones Fitou

Vintage – 2010 – 2014

The silky tannins and soft, spicy fruit in this wine will complement roast beef with parsnips and carrots, Yorkshire pudding and lashing of gravy.  It is the perfect wine for roast duck with redcurrant sauce or a more unusual cherry and red wine sauce.  Traditionally Fitou is drunk with wild boar so all game dishes such as game pie, venison and pigeon would go down a treat.

A glass of Domaine Jones Fitou will also go down extremely well with the cheese board and especially the more mature hard cheeses.

Domaine Jones Grenache

Vintage 2009 - 2014

This red wine comes into its own with lamb especially with a herb crust of rosemary and thyme.  Equally as good with a Boxing Day turkey curry or Christmas Eve pork pie and charcuterie. If you were having roast goose with spicy red cabbage this Christmas then this would definitely be the perfect wine.

All wines are available online and Les Perles wines are reserved for members of La Gare du Vin Wine Club - find out more here.

Pruning with my parents

Pruning at this time of year is idyllic – fresh, crisp mornings with wisps of low cloud, warm balmy afternoons and an untypical stillness in the air.  But this is the usual enthusiasm in the first couple of vineyards - 55,000 vines later it may not be the same story.

Mum and Dad arrived this week to help top prune my old vines – the invaluable preparation before the 'skilled' labour go in and leave just the right amount of buds to ensure a healthy harvest through gale force winds, frosts and the greedy wild boar.

Here are a couple more photos, the good ones taken by my Uncle Ed who has also come to join in the family prune!

The 2016 Vintage

So how was the 2016 vintage?  Well after a rather dramatic start with the forest fire on the 5th of September some of my old vines acted as firebreaks and actually stopped the fire as it rampaged its way through the tinder dry garrigue buffeted by 100 km an hour winds. It definitely was coming around the mountain and it took 300 firemen and 24 hours to finally put out the fire that burnt 2,500 acres of scrubland.

We were worried that there may be smoke taint in some of the wines especially those that acted as a firebreak and were literally scorched by the flames.  We harvested these grapes from the first couple of rows separately and made one barrel of ‘Fitou Fumé’.  These grapes had been dried out by the fire which concentrated the sugar so the ferment was slow and difficult.  There was a potential alcohol of but in the end we decided to leave it sweet so we have just one barrel of forest fire concentrated red - fortunately with no smoke signal in site.  Now all we have to do is think of a name.

But the heat of the fire wasn’t the only thing to scorch the vines.  Pathetic rainfall especially in the winter (125mm compared with 190 mm in 2015) gave the smallest berries that I have ever seen in my seven vintages at Domaine Jones. The Syrah in particular was affected, with berries half the size of the last vintage.  The Syrah that did stand out though was the St Roch vineyard, one of our highest vineyards at 400m on chalky clay soils.  This wine adds freshness and peppery notes to our Les Perles de Jones Syrah which is a blend of 3 different vineyards.  The other two are at lower altitudes (300m and 150m above sea-level) on chalky clay and schist soils.

Each vineyard is vinified separately before being blended in the spring following the harvest.  At Domaine Jones we have always vinified each vineyard separately and locals must think that we are completely bonkers to do so as we have over 20 vineyards and most are less than two acres.   But after seven years there is a satisfaction when you can taste the wine from each different vineyard and you feel like you are getting to know the character of each plot - which ones perform better than others in which vintages and what they bring to the final blend.