France's 2009 vintage

In the last few days I have been in the Languedoc, Greater Burgundy and Bordeaux. As I have been reporting, not least in yesterday's Scenes from Languedoc life, this has been the most wonderful summer in France, following the sort of long, hard winter that vines respond to well, which has led to high hopes in France's vignerons.

However, I write from Bordeaux (where Mick Rock's photo to the left was taken) in really quite stormy weather – the last three days have seen quite a bit of rain – which serves to remind us just how critical the next...