Clare raised her hand. ‘If anyone with an outside job has had enough of the sun, feel free to ask me to swap later.’

‘I might,’ said Godfrey, dabbing his pink forehead with a hanky. ‘And if you spot a journalist, please point them in my direction.’

Pippa tugged her cap down lower over her face. ‘Definitely. I don’t want to talk to the press. I don’t want to talk to anyone, really. My plan is to keep as low a profile as possible.’

I reassured her that she wouldn’t be expected to give tours, but just to be on hand to help as needed. It was a shame she was so shy; she was such a lovely girl and more knowledgeable about the vineyard than the rest of us put together. Still, there was no way I was going to force her to do anything she was uncomfortable with.

‘I’ve put a thousand bottles of 2016 Blanc de Blanc through the gyropallet,’ said Matt. ‘So they’re riddled and ready to go.’

This was the big cage machine which joggled the bottles gently until they were upside down and all the dead yeast formed a plug at the bottle neck, ready to pop out.

‘Great.’ I gave him the thumbs-up. ‘And you’re confident you can do the dégorgement and dosage in front of an audience?’

‘Sure.’ He folded his arms across his broad chest and grinned. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

I shuddered. ‘Don’t tempt fate. We don’t want any equipment malfunctions today.’

He and Clare exchanged amused looks; a valve on a tank had failed a few days ago resulting in Clare getting an impromptu hosing down with several gallons of the Cuvée.

‘And I’m going to follow on from Matt’s demo with the labelling machine,’ Clare put in. ‘Putting the foil caps over the corks and attaching bottle labels.’

‘I’ve put a cool box with bottles of water for us at the top of the vineyard and another just inside the winery.’ Pippa glanced at my bare head. ‘It’s hot and exposed out there, Lottie; make sure you find a hat.’

‘Good thinking,’ I said, making a mental note to borrow something from Betsy.

I was going to be giving tours of the vineyard and talking through a year in the life of a vine. I had some flashcards in the pocket of my shorts with some statistics on in case I forgot; I’d never been very good with numbers.

‘Has everyone got sunscreen?’ I continued. ‘Roger, Godfrey, you should be mostly under cover, but even so.’

The two men were handling sales and wine tastings between them in an open-sided marquee next to the bar.

‘Slip, slap, slop,’ agreed Roger heartily, taking a tube of suncream from his pocket and offering it round.