During his year of exploration, Patrick meets a rich cast of characters. Among them is a young local wine-maker called Virgile, who offers to initiate Patrick into the mysteries of each season`s work in the fields and in the cellar. Virgile is passionately committed to perfection, though he operates on a shoestring. At the other extreme is Manu, Patrick`s dipsomaniac neighbour, a die-hard traditionalist producing a private wine lake of unspeakable rouge. With Manu as his self-appointed guide, Patrick embarks on a tour of the region`s wine makers, a succession of lively encounters with growers as varied as the wines themselves. Interwoven are digressions into the history of the region and its wine-making, right back to the earliest plantings by the Greeks and Romans. Meanwhile, the author struggles to deal with his dilapidated inheritance – an unfamiliar and unpredictable world where the brambles have grown as tall as the olive trees, the water supply has just dried up and there is a ferocious animal under the roof tiles.