I have never been so grateful for a sat nav in my entire life, though I will admit it took me a good ten minutes to realise I had been driving in circles around the same vineyard three times. The trouble with Languedoc-Roussillon in late October, you see, is that every dusty track looks identical once the vines have turned that particular shade of russet brown, and my phone had decided this was the perfect moment to switch to French directions without telling me. I eventually spotted the stone wall I had been seeking, partly hidden behind a tangle of late-blooming honeysuckle that clearly had not got the memo about autumn.

The Carnas itself sat low against the hillside, a proper old stone farmhouse with shutters that had faded from whatever colour they once were to a sort of weathered terracotta. I had chosen October partly for the prices, if I am honest, but mostly because I wanted to see this part of France without the August crowds and the sort of heat that makes you consider moving into the wine cellar permanently. What I had not fully prepared for was how the season would transform absolutely everything about the place.

My first mishap came before I even reached the door. I had stopped to admire a fig tree heavy with fruit, the last stubborn survivors of the season, and in my enthusiasm I managed to drop my car keys directly into a drainage channel. There I was, crouched in a damp ditch in my holiday clothes, fishing around with a stick while a local cat watched with what I can only describe as professional disdain. The keys were eventually retrieved, slightly muddy and considerably less dignified than when I had arrived.

The owner had left the place unlocked, trusting in the sort of rural calm that autumn brings. Inside, the Carnas smelled of wood smoke and something else I could not place at first, something warm and slightly sweet. I later discovered a bowl of quinces on the kitchen counter, brought in from the garden that morning and already starting to soften. The rooms were cooler than I expected, not unpleasantly so, but with that particular stone-house chill that makes you grateful for the log burner stacked and ready in the corner. I found myself immediately planning my evening around it, something I never do at home where the heating simply works and requires no performance.

What struck me most was the light. The sun sat lower here than I was used to, streaming through the south-facing windows in thick golden bands that made the dust motes look almost deliberate. By four in the afternoon the shadows had already begun to stretch across the terrace, and I understood why the previous guests had left a half-empty bottle of local wine on the outdoor table. This was not summer drinking weather anymore. This was the season of wrapping your hands around a glass for warmth, of watching the sky turn that particular violet-grey that seems to belong only to southern France in autumn.

I walked down to the village that evening, partly to buy bread and partly to escape my own incompetence with the wood burner, which was currently producing more smoke than heat. The plane trees along the road were shedding their leaves in that lazy, intermittent way they do, and my footsteps were the only sound for long stretches. The baker was closing up, but she opened again when she saw me hovering, and we conducted our entire transaction in gestures and broken French while her husband swept the pavement outside, methodically pushing golden drifts into the gutter.

That night I finally got the fire going properly, after what felt like an hour of crumpled newspaper and muttered encouragement. I sat with my quince-scented wine and the last of the bread, listening to something moving in the vineyard beyond the garden wall. An owl, perhaps, or just the wind working through bare branches. The season had stripped everything back to essentials, I realised. No pool to distract, no long evenings on the terrace without a jumper. Just the house, the land, and whatever small competence I could muster against the gathering dark.