Through the grapevine...

A common site at this time of year is to see a lone ‘vigneron’ bent over the vines with secateurs in hand, painstakingly pruning row after row of plants.  What is a much less common site is to see 40 people attempting to do the same thing at the same time.  This was what passers-by would have seen last Saturday morning as we were attending a course in pruning. Not my normal Tasse du Thé but when you live in one of the largest wine-producing regions of France you can’t help but take an interest – and there was also the promise of a ‘Grillade’ accompanied by local wines as an incentive! 

The morning started off with coffee and a slide-show in the Terrassous ‘Cave’ (our local wine co-operative), then we all walked into the neighbouring vineyards to try it for ourselves.  Some of us were better than others, but at the end of the session there were twigs everywhere and at least 10 rows had been pruned (although I don’t think we were there as cheap labour!)

Towards midday the smell of the barbecue proved irresistible and we all sat down to enjoy a really good meal including salads, crusty bread, typical Catalan style grilled meats (too fatty for me) and a wonderful cheese plate.  Wine pruning is very thirsty work so luckily they had also provided the entire range of local wines – Sweet Muscat as an apero, then Rosé and/or Red to follow. 

  

 

Somehow we all made our way back to the Cave where pudding had been laid out – accompanied by yet more sweet Muscat (rude to say no, of course!) – and we were all presented with a certificate.  I don’t think I’ll be giving up my day job anytime soon, but it has certainly opened my eyes to the back-breaking work that goes into producing my wine!

Pictures from the Pyrénées-Orientales

The weather was so beautiful here yesterday that I was inspired to take my camera out on one of our walks.  So for this blog entry, instead of being a long ‘ramble’ about nothing in particular, here are some pictures taken on our long ramble...

 

The Vineyard at the bottom of the garden – hard to believe there will be grapes to be picked in 6 month’s time.

 

 

The track through the peach/apricot orchards (I’m sure the farmer knows why I always wear a jacket with big pockets in the summertime!).

 

 

Mimosa – not just a cocktail!

 

Council tax finally put to good use – the Mairie have dotted these little ‘rest stops’ all around an 8km circular walk around the village.  Here you can sit on the little stump, look through the frame and read more than you ever wanted to know about the ruined windmill in front of you...

 

One of my favourite places – at the top of the hill you have a 360° panoramic view with the Canigou mountain in front of you and the sea twinkling in the distance behind you.

There’s nearly always some reason to have to make a detour on the way home – usually it is seeing/hearing hunters who obviously cannot read the ‘No Hunting’ signs but on this occasion there was an out of control bonfire in the vines.  At least the dog was happy with the extra 30 minutes!

Grape Expectations

A few weeks ago we were woken up by shouts from the bottom of the garden and when I stuck my head out of the window I could see the vineyard owner waving and calling something.  With some elaborate hand gestures and further shouting I finally understood what he was saying – ‘On Coupe’ was the message, and ‘On arrive’ was my reply.  Grape harvest day had arrived.

The best thing about the vineyard at the bottom of our garden is that we don’t own it.  We have keys to the gate so can walk the dog, eat the grapes and collect the old vine stumps for firewood.  Everytime we meet the owner he complains that there is no profit in wine anymore – and then asks us if we want to buy it !  Having heard him on his tractor at all hours of the day and night weeding, pruning, spraying etc the answer is always a polite ‘non merci’ but we did offer to help with the harvest and now it was time.

They had obviously started much earlier in the day as by the time we arrived they had stopped for their mid-morning break of red wine and spicy sausage – which we declined.  We were handed a bucket and a sharp pair of secateurs each and then followed a brief lesson – always place your hand under the bunch of grapes and not near the stalk while you are snipping, (he showed us the scars where he had not taken his own advice) and never ever put the secateurs in the bucket (I can only imagine the damage this could cause to the wine presses) and then we were allocated a line of vines. 

To start with it was quite enjoyable and there is a great feeling of satisfaction in finding a huge bunch of grapes hiding behind some leaves and we soon learned that some vines were more productive than others and some only produced some straggly bunches, but they all needed picking.  There were 6 of us in all – the vineyard owner and his wife, my husband and me, a Catalan man and a Belgian whose main job seemed to be to bring us empty buckets and tip our full ones into the trailer.  We had guests staying at the time and ‘E’ (using initials as he has such a distinctive name) came to join us for a while and made himself extremely popular when he made regular trips back to the house to bring out a jug of iced water which we drank out of plastic champagne glasses that he found in a cupboard – a surreal experience!

After two hours of back-breaking work, the trailer was full and I was looking forward to a break while it was tractored over to the co-operative, but Belgian Bucket Man had other ideas and left large crates at the end of each row so we could continue working while he was gone.

Finally it was lunch-break and we shared a bottle of Rosé before leaving them to eat and sleep in a shady corner of the vineyard while we went back to the house to see our guests.  The afternoon passed much the same as the morning but was becoming more and more painful – grapes do not grow at the same height (bad design !) and to strip a vine involves bending, stretching, and crouching and I was beginning to get complaints from muscles I didn’t even know existed.  Also did I mention it was 30° ?   But finally we reached the last line, there was much shaking of sticky hands and lots of grateful thank-yous and at last we staggered back up the garden, where I collapsed into a sun-lounger and my husband managed to jump straight into the pool without complaining about the water temperature !  I also have to mention here that while our guest ‘E’ was not on water-carrying duties he had filled his time by moving and restacking our log-pile closer to the house ready for winter so he was as shattered as we were – he is welcome here anytime !

Now that my muscles have recovered and the scratches on my legs have gone and my fingernails have grown back I can look back on that day as being one of the highlights of the summer. 

PS.  Two days later Mr G, the vineyard owner turned up at the front gate holding a box which he said was a present to say thank you for our help.  I peered in hoping to see some shiny bottles only to see – grapes…. !  To be fair, they were big juicy Muscat grapes and not the smaller variety we had been picking but it was a little too soon for me to face another grape !

Integration, Integration, Integration

Many people who dream of moving to france talk of wanting to live in a village where they can integrate, make friends and become part of the community.  It can definitely be done and I have just experienced the sort of weekend which proves it:

On Friday evening I experienced my first “Ceremonie des Voeux du Nouvel An”.  This is an annual event held in the village hall to welcome the new inhabitants and the new babies.  There are now 1100 inhabitants of this village and it seemed that everybody had turned up.  The Mayor gave one of the longest ‘short’ speeches I have ever heard, accompanied by a powerpoint presentation on a large screen behind him, outlining their spending budget for the forthcoming year and showing photos of last year’s purchases – the highlight of which appeared to be a shiny new street sweeping machine. The majority of the audience managed to stay awake, mainly thanks to the small children hurtling around the room and the screams of disgruntled babies.  There was then a roll-call of all the new babies and they (and their parents!) were invited up on stage and presented with a young olive tree to be planted in their gardens – a lovely gesture I thought.  We all then applauded and the babies, startled by the noise, burst into tears again.  The Mayor then announced that the meeting would be concluded with an ‘apero’ and within seconds we had all stacked our chairs, tables were laid out with quiches, cakes, sweets and wine – and within nano-seconds the elderly widows of the village began filling their faces and handbags with as much as they could carry!  I started talking to a gentleman who had been introduced as one of the new inhabitants of the village, who just happens to be English too, but before we had a chance to chat we were inundated with locals who were fascinated to talk to us and all wanting to try out their version of English – and I left with an invitation to visit an elderly  couple who want to practice their language skills. 

On Saturday afternoon I went for a walk in the vineyards with my neighbour – a lovely lady who manages to look ‘chic’ even dressed in walking boots.  The word ‘walk’ may be a bit of an exaggeration as we spent most of the time sitting on a grassy bank on the corner of the vineyard enjoying the sunshine and chatting – much to the dog’s frustration.  We went back to her house for tea with her husband and I had my first experience of the Galette des Rois.  This is a cake made of puff pastry with a frangipane filling and is a tradition for Epiphany – it contains a small ‘favour’ and whoever gets the slice with the favour in it is King or Queen for the day and gets to wear the paper crown that is sold with the cake.  Sadly/luckily none of us won that day but there was plenty of Galette left and I keep expecting to see JC or Francoise wearing a crown in their garden one day.

And finally, on Sunday morning the dog and I were on our usual ten minute stroll to the village to buy the bread and we fell into step beside a lady who was also on her way there and although it was only a short trip, by the time we reached the bakery we had exchanged life stories.  We stopped off at her house on the way back (which just happens to be for sale) and she showed me all around it and even offered to look after the dog if ever I needed help.  During our conversation I mentioned how pleased I was that everybody in the village seemed so friendly and that I had been a bit nervous about moving to such a Catalan village as they might not have welcomed English people and she mentioned that actually she thought there was another English couple who lived just up the road and she had heard that they were nice; I was baffled at first and we went through the list of who lived in the houses further along and then I realised, she was talking about my husband and me!