This week I visited Sean and Caro Feely at their vineyard in Saussignac, which is in the process of being renamed Chateau feely (it used to be Chateau Hair Garrigue). 

It is not easy to find from the map offered by the Maison de Vin, but worth the effort. Take the D14 road from Bergerac to Ste Foy la Grande and take a left on the D4 to Saussignac, and after 400 metres there is a sign on the left for Chateau Haut Garrigue. 

They have a spectacular view over the Dordogne valley, and after visiting the vineyards and hearing Sean explain the bio-organic methods they use to keep the terroir healthy, we sat in the open air to taste their various wines. 

I was accompanied by my friend and neighbour Raymond, a retired officer of gendarmes and a great lover of wine. We came away with three cases, one of their wines called Sincerite, all Sauvignon Blanc, for me, and a case each of their 2007 Haut Garrigue reds which they are re-naming Resonance.

A little earlier, I visited my old friend Francis-Xavier at Chateau de Tiregand, accompanied by my new friend Klaus Einwanger, who has been taking the photos for the forthcoming Bruno cookbook. (You can find examples of his prize-winning work on www.foodfactory.de). 

In the cellars, we tasted the 2011, which is about to go into barrels and which promises to be a splendid wine. And he kindly gave me a rare bottle of the 2001 which I served at a small dinner for Raymond and the baron. 

We began with smoked trout from the Isle of Mull in Scotland, which we drank with a bottle of Monthuys champagne. With the Tiregand I prepared one of my favourite dishes, aiguilettes de canard au miel et aux grains de moutarde, to which I added a splash of Armagnac, and accompanied it with potatoes from the garden. 

The wine was magnificent, smooth and gentle at first and then its strength slowly became more apparent. We drank it in something close to reverence.

A great dinner last night, with the table groaning under a range of dishes that included chicken in a sauce of morille mushrooms, Boeuf Perigourdin, Parmentier of cod and smoked herring, a salad of heirloom tomatoes, risotto of leeks and truffles and an enormous cheeseboard. Bottles of Pecharmant red and Julien de Savignac’s Bergerac Sec added to the fun.

This is a week of intense work in the kitchen preparing the dishes to be photographed for the Bruno cookbook. In the picture with me and the Boeuf Perigourdin I had just made, are food-taster Kobi, the book designer, and Klaus, who is about to photograph the dish.

Most of the work is being done in the kitchen by my wife Julia, taking time off from running her Scottish hotel, and our friend Tine. We have been preparing as many as ten dishes a day, while dashing off to visit markets as they open, duck farms at feeding time, fishermen at dusk, bakeries at dawn and dairy farms when the cows are milked.

Over on Huffington Post I have written about my favourite fictional detectives, from the obvious to the rather unexpected.

Detectives are the enduring heroes of the crime genre, men and women whose character quirks and foibles remain with us long after the details of the mysteries they solved have been forgotten. 

In any story, it is the characters who see the reader through to the end, becoming the friends we wonder about when not buried nose-deep in one of their adventures.

But in my list of top detectives I noticed a recurring theme - it is not just the heroes of the story who have impressed me, but the use of location as a supporting actor, a character in and of itself.