A drop of rich, fruity Collioure could have saved my much-mourned horse

Tucked away below the eastern tip of the Pyrenees, its vineyards running up to the Mediterranean coast, in the last pocket of Catalan France before the real Catalonia, lies one of the smallest of the French appellations - just 800 acres of vineyards, making red and rose wines from Grenache Noir, Carignan and Mourvedre, with Syrah and Cinsault for spice.

The red wines of Collioure are rich, round, fruity and smooth like the luscious female nudes of the sculptor Aristide Maillol, who lived in the region and whose tomb stands by the vineyard of Clos Chatard. Roll the name "Maillol" in your mouth while imagining well-shaped buttocks and well-matured wine, and you won't be far from the taste of Collioure. It is the serene, robed and pontifical version of a flavour distantly imitated by those recently ordained candidates from the Languedoc. Its soft tannins and cherry-brandy aftermath ensure that, if anything can revive you, you will be revived by Collioure.

Alas, when my noble, generous, ever-to-be-mourned horse Barney collapsed beneath me last month in Badminton Park, there was no Collioure to hand. He opened his mouth as though to beg for some such potion, then, finding no relief, neighed twice from the encroaching darkness and died. No drink revives Barney's memory more vividly than the Collioure that might once have revived his heart. And it is with a bottle before me that I recall his virtues, and his determination to go on, half blind, arthritic and yet still a leader of the herd, to the very end.

The bottle before me comes from the best of the Collioure vineyards, the tiny Domaine la Tour Vieille, whose Puig Ambeille 1998 was allotted three well-deserved stars in the Hachette wine guide, and whose La Pinede 2002 is every bit as smooth, rich and fruity. At 14.5 per cent, this comes close to the strength of a fortified wine, but with none of the burnt-beetroot flavours of those subtropical gut-busters from Australia. Indeed, Collioure combines strength with gentleness, boldness with grace, just as Barney did.

You can obtain La Pinede 2002 from Yapp Brothers of Mere (www.yapp.co.uk) at £10.95 a bottle, and it is worth every penny. Yapp Brothers also has a special offer of Pyrenean discoveries, at £109 the case, which includes two bottles of the Collioure, along with reds and whites going all the way from west to east, and Basque to bisque. Having lived for a while in Jurancon, I retain a love of the region, and a determination never to visit it again except in the glass. I am there in imagination now, picking my way past the as-yet-unspoilt woods and fields, through villages where Bearnais is still spoken, on a blind old horse whose majesty is undiminished by his death.

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