a peak into this week in the Minervois!…
We’ve had a public holiday and lots of time for exploring and catching up with friends and family (the Frenchie side. But I’m counting down the days to catching up with the Aussie one!).
We had a visit from winemaking friends from Australia, Elva and Ron Laughton of Jasper Hill. Benji showed them around the cellar in the village. Thanks for the visit and the Roquefort guys…
Every year, leading up to the 1st of November, you will see florists and markets everywhere stocking up with chrysanthemums. In France as well as other countries in Europe – Spain, Italy, Poland etc, this flower symbolises death and is placed in cemeteries on ‘La Toussaint’ – ‘All Saints’ Day’ – the day people remember their loved ones and bring flowers to their graves.
The day of ‘La Toussiant’ in the Western Christian world dates from the 7th century BC in Rome under Pope Boniface IV, and from the 9th century BC for the rest of Europe. On a quick peek on the internet, it seems that other countries also take flowers to their deceased on this day: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Hungary, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, as well as some cities in the US.
I’ll always remember the first year I arrived in France, walking through the cemetery of Lagrasse, by chance, just after the 1st of November. I was in awe, it was the most beautiful spectacle of colours and flowers. ‘They really look after their dead loved ones here,’ I said to Benjamin. He laughed and explained the tradtion of ‘La Toussaint’ to me. From then on I’ve always made sure to have a wander inside the cemetries at this time of year to take in the beauty and have a think. I don’t do it often, but going in and having a quiet walk around, reading the various names and looking at the faces of those few whose families have left a photograph gives me time to reflect and be grateful for being around. Corny, I know – but it puts things back into perspective and I feel even more happy to be around walking the earth instead of under it.
Lilas and I went for a walk in our village’s cemetery this week:
Morbid I may be, but I loved this cross. The grapes, the wheat, it seems so rustic and perfect for a rural cemetery whose village is devoted to winemaking. I was probably wrong with the symbols however! – the blog ‘Graveyard Addiction’ (sounds very ‘Harold and Maude’ ) attributes the grapes as the blood of Christ and the wheat as a symbol of harvest (thanks G.A.!).
I spied Lilas with a pile of flowers in her hand – ‘No, you can’t take the flowers!’ I said. ‘Mummy, I’m picking the ones off the ground and giving them to ones that don’t have them,’ she explained.
I’ve just remembered that I used to give Mum chrysanthemums on Mother’s Day! – how funny to think of the twist from this Australian tradition to the French one… People keep saying the Aussies are topsy-turvy.
And your Tip For When In France: never present chrysanthemums to the host at a dinner party, or on your first date.
Some images from this week!
Well that’s it for picking this year. All the grapes are in, busy fermenting, creating heat in the tanks and Benji can breathe a sigh of relief. We’ve had good amounts of sunshine and wind, no hail, no rot – now it’s time to leave the grapes to do their stuff in the winery and see what sort of juices evolve.
These photos show the last of the grapes from the harvest – the Grenache – coming in. We hung around for a couple of hours to see the action. It might sound nerdy, just hanging around and watching grapes go into a machine for processing, but really, it was quite exciting! Really! There’s something about the odour, the colours, the satisfaction on the faces of the grape growers seeing their fruit finally picked and about to perform their transformation.
As I’ve already said, the harvest is a wonderful time to witness. And it was just great taking in the blokes’ excitement in the cellar.
The grapes were carefully emptied from their ‘caisses’ (box/basket) one by one into the de-stemmer/crusher (yes, it does what it says, plucks the berries from their stems and sorts away the leaves) which then drops the glistening little purple ‘beads’ (they look like jewellery) onto the sorting tray. They are dropped down into another tray, with a huge turning ‘screw’ and then pumped up through the red hose, straight into the tank. Some of the grapes were collected into buckets and emptied directly into wine barrels (second-hand, so not full-blown wood influences on the juice). A small experiment to develop different flavours.
If the wine is as delicious as the berries tasted, everyone will be happy!…
The Vigneron's Wife 