No grape left behind.....

Anticipating a full load of grapes from the afternoon's harvest.

Day One of Vendange 2010 began with an apology from Jean-Marc for all the things that he would do to us during the next two weeks. He might push us to work harder, he might raise his voice, he might be impatient.....he did say, after all, that this was going to be boot camp.

One could hardly blame him for any imagined irrational behavior, since these next two weeks would be the culmination of all of the work which had gone into the vineyard during the past year. It was important to him, therefore, it was important to us.

Boot camp is a learning experience and we learned plenty that first day.

1. "Sécateur" is the French word for clipper.

2. Cut the grape cluster off the vine close to the base of the fruit.

3. Be sure to look for every grape on the vine....leave no grape behind as they are precious.

4. Check on the ground around every vine for any grapes which may have blown off the vine during the Mistral

5. Keep the shriveled grape clusters. They don't add juice but they do add flavor to the wine. Even a little dirt is okay.

6. Pick all the leaves and weeds out of the harvest bucket before dumping the grapes into the truck

7. Change positions frequently while cutting.

8. Don't run with sécateurs (actually, I made that one up, but it's probably a good idea.)

That's me in my full sun protection gear.

The harvest team was made up of Team France, four ladies who had worked the Rouge-Bleu harvest in previous years, along with a young man who was interning in the wine business; and Team America, five gals and a guy who had no vendange experience whatsoever but were keen to learn.

As would be imagined, Team France's harvesting skills were impressive. These four gals and guy could work a field quicker than a Frenchman could make his way around a crowded room with a kiss for every cheek.

We were envious but this wasn't a competition, so we didn't mind the obvious gap in performance. Our rival team even finished up our rows for us after they had done theirs, thus cementing Franco-American relations.

The first four hours flew by quickly and we really appreciated the French custom of the two hour lunch. Kristi and Jean-Marc provided pizza, pate, cheese, baguettes and several salad selections. Rouge-Bleu wines and beer on tap rounded out the luncheon menu.

The Teams, getting ready to hit the field.

When we returned to the field, we moved into the grand-daddy of the vines, the Grenache. These vines had been here for 77 years and were as gnarly as you would expect a 77 year old to be. The vines were low producers (I would be too at that age) but the tase was sweet when I slipped a few of the dusty blue grapes into my mouth.

We were warned that this field would be more difficult to harvest due to the grapes growing lower to the ground hidden under a dense cover of leaves. It was. For the rest of the afternoon we groveled and stooped, knowing that our bodies would betray us by the next morning. They did.

After the grapes had been crushed and stored in the concrete vats, we headed back to the apartments for a shared meal prepared by the men in our entourage. Four bottles of wine later (graciously donated by Jean-Marc and Kristi), we were back at our apartments before midnight, grateful that we had made it through the first day.