Today we were entertained by the lovely Kate from Vin en Vacances who took us and five others around 3 different wineries in the Minervois. Starting off at 9.30am we arrived at our first visit just after 10 to find Emmanuel and his couple of workers including his young son having breakfast outside having been working since 3am harvesting the grapes. After a look around what was a big barn with lots of tanks - cement and fibre glass as well as oak barrels- we moved on to a tasting. We even had the delight of tasting the first juice that was made from the grapes picked this morning and just put in the tank.

Then on to what was to be our lunch stop and to meet the wonderful vigneron, restauranter and generally charming Jean-Luc. He showed us not only his winery but also his market garden complete with his lovely pig aptly named Piggy. After a tour of his wines, with a real passion for his "natural" wines - without the presence of preservatives we sat down to eat a delicious lunch of wild boar and to continue drinking his wine.

Then we had a quick trip to the medieval village of Minerve with its bridge over Gorge Brian (pronounced Bree-ann) before our THIRD wine visit to the smooth operation of L'Ostal Cazes. The Somellier explained their philosophy of wine and we tasted the only Cru appelation in the Minervois.

The days was a huge contrast of artisan and corporate wine making - from the extreme of "natural" wine which won't travel, and the blends can vary hugely each year; to a high investment with great care taken to keep the Languedoc distinctives despite commercial pressures to produce sweeter wines for the upcoming generation.

Exhausted and with our palates well and truly jaded we returned to Carcasonne and had a nice light pizza with a beer! It's been a great day and we now have a lovely new book on Langudeoc wine to discover more of what we should be buying and drinking!