Here, there is no way round a short explanation of the concept of ‘yield’. It is the tiny yields achieved in many vineyards in this area that are the secret to why the wine is so good, but also why it can never be cheap to produce.

Most wine, made from relatively vigorous young vines in reasonably fertile soils with good access to water will produce approximately one bottle for every square metre of vineyard land. A hectare is 100 metres x 100 metres (a bit bigger than a football pitch). So – approximately 10,000 bottles.

In an area like, say, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, where the lack of fertility and the absence of easy water give the famously concentrated (and alcoholic) style of one of France’s favourite wines, you might expect 4-5,000 bottles a hectare.

We have 4 hectares, so if we had yields equivalent to Chateauneuf, you might expect 15-20,000 bottles, but we only made 3,000 bottles of this wine in 2007. Imagine a square 4 metres by 4 metres. With one bottle sitting in the middle. That is roughly the yield that these ancient vines give us.

The flipside of this alarmingly small production is that the quality and concentration of the wine produced has the potential to be exceptionally good.