There’s been stops and starts… and now it’s all GO to get the grapes in.
We’re harvesting three weeks later than previous years, but it’s shaping up to be a pretty good ‘recolte’ … there’s a charged atmosphere and smiles all round.
I’ll fill you in on this harvest over a few posts, but here’s a selection of pics from today, in and out of our village.
(you may note some ‘fx’ in the images – my dear old camera is on the blink so what you see are the results of lumping around with a clunky electronic rectangle)
woke to to the noise of the harvester outside the kitchen windowtent-pickingchecking out the noise… a tractor cruising down the driveway
here comes the sun
house on the prairie
Meanwhile, back in the village…
clearing out remains of the ‘pressoir’ (press)
the Vigneron having a spray…and the ladies are still out checking the ‘raisins’
It’s Thursday and our turn poker night at our house. The guys were insepcting the labels for a new wine of Benji’s that’s about to be bottled and then got stuck into drinking some others.
Inspecting Vincent’s labels for a new Benji wine coming soon, ‘Boulevard Napoleon’. (and a thank you to monsieur p for your hand modelling work)
I was so excited, Benji put a great bottle of white in the freezer and I left them (wringing my hands in anticipation) in the kitchen as they sat down to play. Half-an-hour later I reminded Benji about his bottle chilling and he held one up and said ‘Oh this one? It’s finished’. My mouth dropped. The scoundrels!
(I should admit I got to bring a twentieth of a glass of chardonnay with me – so generous of you fellas)
I’d been meaning to put up some long-overdue photos anyway.
So for you, here’s a round-up of the 2012 grape harvest in our little area, the village of La Liviniere, in the Minervois region. In our village alone, of approxiamtely 600 people, there are 16 vignerons (winemakers/vineyard owners producing their own brand) and about 150 viticulturalists processing their grapes with the local Cave Co-operative.
It’s been a good harvest and people seem pretty happy about what they’ve picked – despite the kaleidoscope of weather. Essentially, we had good rain, good sun, good wind and the vineyard owners and vignerons are happy to see their babies off the vines and in the tanks.
Gone for the moment the need to check on the weather patterns 24/7 and the worries of the wiles of Nature , it’s now time to work inside the cellars and nurture the juice.
While the viticulteurs take it easier, the vignerons need to keep up a a seven day working week. It is now that crucial decisions, with their accompanying stress, need to be made regarding the precious juice and its management and development.
However, I can say that the general climate in our house is now pleasantly mild with fewer storms brewing on the front .
But not if the wine isn’t shared around.
calamiac, harvest timelunchtime break in the villageman, dog, harvesterraining one afternoon……sunny the nextmorning chat by the harvester
the neighbouring vigneron’s pickers…the alternativewatching the harvester from the house, early morning
Happy vines in the Minervois, as far as the eye can see
It looks like the weather has very much picked up: it’s sunny and blue-skied with cool, northerly winds to help dry out the vines. The nights are fresh and the days warm and it’s forecast to stay like this for the week (we have the ‘meteo’ info on the computer here, updating 24/7!) which makes for a happy vigneron in the house.
This morning was particularly beautiful and there was a wonderful hum in our area today – of expectation, new starts and industry. The sky was clear, children all went back to school and many of the grape growers were beginnng their harvest.
The weather's going to be fine today!our apples are ready for the picking happy walkers
I can’t begin to tell you how much the atmosphere changes around here once people begin to pick their grapes. A whole year’s work and energies culminate in this event and the villages are charged with excitement.
As for any farmer about to harvest, the weather reports are extremely important at this time of year. Any dodgy behaviour – hail, rain, extreme heat – can disturb or destroy the whole year’s work. Stressful times indeed, until all those babies are in, safe in their presses or tanks.
I’ve often pondered this while picking grapes (and how much time you have to ponder!) as looks of stress etched themselves on Benji and his vineyard managers’ faces as the skies filled with ominous storm clouds. But for me, these ideas of vulnerability for the poor grapes were quickly erased by the more exciting idea of ditching secateurs and having the rest of the day off. Maybe even the next day off too! Outrageously WRONG!!!
It wasn’t until I was following a small tractor today, loaded with white grapes, that I fully understood the joy for the growers finally taking their kiddies to their cellars.
following a tractor heading back to the cave with a load of white grapes
Morning light over the neighbour's vines across the roadThe vineyards with our olive trees in the foreground
Who would have thought, with this beautiful, serene morning…
That by evening we’d have a huge storm with some of the loudest ‘tonnerre’ (thunder) I’ve ever heard.
It was suddenly POURING with rain in the strangest directions, the rain lashing at the window before me while I was chopping at the kitchen bench and Lilas asked me if I thought we’d have an ‘inondation’ (flood).
‘Umm, I don’t think so sweetie!??!!!’ .Not necessarily such a big exaggeration either. We had a huge flood in the Minevois in 1999, and I’d only been explaining it to her a few days earlier.
Pretty strange weather, but hopefully not that strange.
looking over at the neighbour's last nightpath leading up to the Montagnes Noires
It didn’t flood, but we had about 30mm of water. Not a great thing for the vines at this time of year. The grape bunches are now so big and beautiful – and almost there! It’s humid too, so not a great combination. The last thing the vineyards want is to rot.
Our friend at dinner last night mentioned the story of a vineyard in Burgandy, where she witnessed a helicopter hovering over a rain-drenched vineyard, fanning it dry! Those Burgundians.
looking over to the neighbours' houses in our hamlet...it's starting to clear at least
Not quite the decadence of Burgandy here. Benji’s hoping for some good old fashioned wind and keeping the ‘soucis’ (worries) at bay with a little night poker!
poker night chez nous
I’ll be back later with the checklist of what they drank!…
There was a beautiful orange glow lighting up our room early this morning and I couldn’t wait to get outside to see what the garden and it’s adjacent vines looked like in that light…
It’s nearing ‘les vendanges’ (harvest time for the grapes – or vintage, as we say in Australia) and it looks like it will be about a week early. The grapes are all looking pretty good (those night visits helped!) and Benji’s only 3/4 stressed. What you see above are bunches of ‘Syrah’. Some of our friends have already started on their whites here in the Minervois, but our red grapes here probably have another week to go before the chop! My days of picking are long gone I’m sorry to say. Darn that back. Everytime I see the pickers out in the heat with their broad smiles, sticky and dirty hands, having a laugh with each other, I get so nostalgic! I never realised how much fun and satsfaction I’d have from finishing a row – finishing a whole vineyard! – with a team. I was only beginning to learn French and so a lot of my time in the row was spent listening to mad, sun-induced conversations I had little or no chance of undersatnding, kind advice from a few of the pickers on how to learn French in Three Easy Steps, or being asked to rattle off sentences out loud to everyone, whose meaning I had no idea about, with hysterical laughter greeting them. They’d ask me to repeat these word for word to ‘the boss’ at home, and then I would know what they meant!… Sentences full of ‘gros mots’ (what the lttle ones call ‘swear words) apparently!
The only thing I couldn’t bring myself to doing was guzzling down the red at lunchtime. How did they do that? You stop for a very LONG 90 minutes (these traditions of meal times must be respected. Geez, in Australia it was a brisk 30 minutes), and then get going again in the full force of the afternoon heat, to finish at 5pm. Most people were very un-Anglo-Saxon and would have just the one glass, but some of the guys would go crazy! I’d look over at the red faces with red in their bellies and wonder how they kept standing, or kept from snipping their fingers. My lunch break was a much less festive affair: lunch with a spectacular view, a very petite conversation in the French that I had, and then a long nap in the vines. Not much else to do out there. But it was so much fun.
A lot of people are already proclaiming that it will be a good year, but it’s hard to know until everything is safe off the vines! Fingers crossed.
Meanwhile, back in the village…
The Vigneron's Wife 