"Decouverte des vins de Montpeyroux," the poster in the window of the Tabac had urged, "18h 30m."

So here I was, on Place du Rosaire, an hour after the event was due to start and not a vigneron in sight.

That familiar London edginess had begun to nibble at the sense of calm I had been cultivating over the first few days of holiday - long hours of nothing more strenuous than lunching, lying down, and reading.

As the first thought of "Why can't anyone ever be on time?" flitted across my mind, I realised that I wasn't quite in the zone just yet.

Then Alain Caujolle-Cauzet appeared, grey, gruff and straight from the fields, closely followed by his wife Isabelle, one of those French women who exudes easy sophistication.

She threw a cloth over a trestle table, he uncorked a few bottles of wine, one of them proffered a glass and everything changed.

At Domaine de Grecaux, a few miles away in St Jean de Fos, this couple produce a powerful, peppery blend of Syrah and Carignan. One sip of the deep red liquid and the edginess evaporated.

We conversed in a mixture of pidgin French and slightly better English. They've only been making wine for a few years and currently produce around 23,000 bottles per year. You can't buy it in England, but - if I understood correctly - there is a wine merchant just north of the border in Peebles that does stock Domaine de Grecaux.

One or two other independent winemakers - not part of the large growers' co-operative that dominates the vineyards around Montpeyroux - also turned up (eventually) to offer their wares too, and very decent wines they were too.

Perhaps more than anything - the beautiful countryside, the walks on the hills over looking the plain of the River Herault and the excellent food to be found in restaurants and markets - it is the joy of discovering new wines that made this trip to the Languedoc special.

Of course, we weren't supposed to be in France at all. Our last break before the start of a second family was going to be a Canadian adventure.

That was before daughter number one intervened, with her advocacy of all things green and eco-friendly. There was to be no flying this year, she declared.

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