Why I won’t be visiting a vineyard any time soon…

Social awkwardness and an intensely satisfying aubergine recipe that’s always socially appropriate

We spent our summers here, where the Hérault river and the Canal du Midi tip into the Mediterranean, for a good decade before we moved here eighteen months ago. I’ve visited every church, museum, ancient monument, village of historical interest, gallery and restaurant of note within a 20-mile radius. If I were working for the tourist office – and I probably should be – I would tell you this region enjoys more days of sunshine than anywhere else in France. From the air, dusty terracotta-roofed towns and villages poke out from the ragged corduroy of the vineyards – miles and miles of them, which, along with oysters and mussels grown from the oyster tables in the Étang du Thau, form the backbone of the department’s economy.

The Languedoc is France’s largest wine-making region, stretching from the Rhône Valley in the southeast down to the Spanish border in the southwest, with more than 700,000 acres under cultivation. They’ve been making wine since the Romans introduced them to the grape.

But until fairly recently, it was quantity over quality, with most of the output comprising the roughest of rough reds. Since the 1980s, there’s been a big improvement, with young French winemakers going off to work in America, Australia, New Zealand and South America, and learning their fine wine ways, while foreign winemakers are also settling here, taking advantage of relatively inexpensive land to set up their operations. The region now produces France’s highest percentage of organic and biodynamic wines, if that’s your sort of thing. Many of the region’s finer reds, whites, rosés and sparklings now sit comfortably on some very fine wine lists indeed.

Which is why, for so many years, given my gallery/church/ancient monument habit, it’s perhaps strange I stealthily resisted visiting any vineyards at all. I managed to keep my lack of enthusiasm secret from my family and friends by shameful acts of cunning. “Oh, I’d love to, I really would, but I just need to finish my book/make something incredibly complicated requiring reductions and foams for lunch/scrub the bathroom floor. No, don’t let me stop you. You go, GO… Have a LOVELY time.” Wave, slam door, relax.

In my working life as a food writer, I’ve visited dozens of vineyards all over the world, from the vastly-vatted to one so adorable that in the movie of her life, the young winemaker would most certainly be played by Juliette Binoche, circa 1998. On these occasions, half a dozen or so crumpled journalists uncrease themselves from air-conditioned minibuses to be greeted by a selection of good vintages, daunting rows of twinkling glasses and sometimes a few smears of something olive-y on toast or a plate or two of excellent ham. They’re expecting you. They have their game face on.

But visiting smaller, private vineyards is a very different experience, no matter how charmingly hand-painted the visite dégustation welcome signs. When people tell me of their ­holidays in France, Italy or Spain where they, oh, you know, just drive through the countryside, stopping here and there at these tiny rural places, tasting as they go, picking up wonderful cases of a little-known red or white or sparkling, a bit of me twists with embarrassment.

I would no more zip up, unannounced, along the rural lane to someone’s house than I’d knock on your door tonight and expect you to give me my tea. What if you’re feeding a dying kitten with a pipette? Making love to someone irresistible but wholly unsuitable? Mugging up on fractions so you will forever remain a genius in the eyes of your 10-year-old? I wouldn’t want my desire for an inexpensive yet versatile rosé to get in the way of any of that, so sorry to bother you, sorry, I’ll be going now. Bye. Bye. Bye.

But a few summers ago, a wine-writer friend recommended a local producer who made a really good muscat. It wasn’t one of these up-a-lane places either, so the risk of a kitten/pipette situation was negligible. On the last day of our holiday, in between ­taking the dogs to the vet for their £40 pats on the head (seriously, in the days of pet passports, I always used to wonder if two minutes on a table and a scribble in a book was all it took to stop rabies), buying trays of peaches for jam from a roadside stall and running to the supermarket for cheap sea salt, Marseille soap flakes and tins of confit de canard, I broke the habit of a holiday and caved in. My first cave visite as a civilian.

We pitched up in the neat car park of an office building so bland, in England it might have been the headquarters of somewhere selling air conditioning or paper products. It was clear to anyone with eyes that there were no dying ­kittens on the premises. Fine.

Inside, bottles glistened on immaculate, well-lit glass shelves. A young woman (tight white shirt, tailored trousers, murderous heels, oppressively straightened hair – one of those people who, just by breathing in and out, has the capacity to make you feel grubby) tapped at a keyboard. It was very quiet – the slap-slap of our flip-flops on the stone floor sounded indecent.

Murderous Heels Woman looked up but didn’t move. “Can I help you?”

My husband mutters something about muscat. “You want to TASTE it?”