Grapes ready for harvest
The vendange is finished, the grapes are in and the local caves are beginning to transform the grapes into wine, vintage 2010.
I found that you don’t need to wait long to sample it. Yesterday we held the AGM of the Foyer Rural and afterwards we were treated to a glass or several of a delicious brew of grapes that had just begun the fermentation process. So it whilst it was still fairly sweet it had a fizziness of sparkling wine but was not too alcoholic.
It has been on the news this week that a whole vineyard of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes has been harvested by machine at night and stolen. This is a long way away from here, right down on the south coast, but it still caused a lot of surprise considering the solidarity of vineyard owners and the producers.
Here the grapes for the crémant and the really good wines are harvested by hand, and the black grapes for everyday wines by machine. The field almost next door to us was harvested last weekend (at least that’s what I assume as we missed it). After a field is harvested it is the custom for people in the village to wander in and pick whatever has been missed. This is called glanage.. The machines must be very efficient. as when I went looking for grapes I could find hardly any. I wouldn’t make a very good vineyard thief as I felt guilty just looking!
