Wine Anyone?

First let me say that I am sorry that this post looks so awful.  I just cannot get this post to lose all the gaps.  So just ignore the gaps and enjoy the photos.

The Vines outside our house, taken from a bedroom window.

The same shot (above), but in the early morning fog, before the heat of the day.

Some grapes from those vines (above).  They are not really for eating.

A favourite vineyard (above) near where we live, complete with a tower used for keeping pigeons.  The Dordogne is famous for these towers, usually attached to houses.

We were directed up to Clos d'Yvigne by our builder whose wife Sue works there.


The vineyard is owned by a British woman called Patricia Atkinson.  Patricia went out to France with her husband and decided to regenerate the vineyard on the property they had bought.  Her husband left after a year (too hard), but she carried on and build it up into a thriving winery.

Clos d'Yvigne's vines
 

 

 

In the tasting room with Karen, who kindly explained about the wines.  Sue also took time to answer all my questions about the vineyard.  A really lovely lady.

Ian Clearly wanted to make sure he savoured the tasting experience.  As you can imagine, we went home with a few bottles!





On our way down our small road late one afternoon, we spotted that our neighbour had started the vendange, the picking of the wine grapes.  Our neighbour Natalie was there with another wine grower, helping Natalie’s father with the harvest.  We stopped to talk and take photos, and they very kindly stopped to explain the different types of grapes, how they grew and how the vendange worked.

Taken from outside our house.

Don't you just want to pull up a chair and watch this all day long?

And here are the grapes just before they get picked.

I stood up on the tractor trailer to take this picture across the vineyard to our house.  Aren't we lucky?

We walked through the vines taking photos of the tractor that towed the grapes to the co-operative, and of the huge tractor type machine that picks the grapes   

Yes the grapes are picked by machine rather than by hand.  So much for that romantic vision!

The tractor straddles the grape vines and plucks the grapes, retaining them until it had cleared a couple of rows.

The grapes are then emptied into the tractor’s trailer.

For all of you wine buffs out there, I bet your lips are smacking at this point!

This apparently, is the nearest these growers get to treading the grapes.  He is walking in the trailer, shifting the grapes around to make room for more.

 I climbed onto the trailer to take a look. 

The grapes were heaped up to the top of the trailer, slopping around in their juice, along with some leaves and bits of vine.


An optical unit, which takes a tiny sample from the grape juice, is used to obtain a test reading on the amount of sugar in the grapes, an indication of the alcohol level.  The grapes should have an alcohol content of less than 17% in order to qualify as wine, over that and it is fortified wine.

No wonder there are street signs at this time of year warning you of the slippery grape juice spillage on the road. 

The smell was quite strong and very sweet.  White wine is always picked in the morning when temperatures are cooler.  We were watching the red wine harvest.

We were very kindly invited to go along with Natalie to the wine co-operative to watch their crop being delivered. 

Because their farm is small, their grapes go to the co-operative with all the other farmers with modest yields.  The grapes are taken by tractor to the cooperative, along with all the other farmers who have started their harvest.  They will visit several times a day for one or two weeks and then maybe a few times a week, as the last grapes mature.

When the grapes arrive at the cooperative, a probe is lowered into the trailer before the load is accepted, and takes a sample of the juice, measuring the sugar content (from which the alcohol content is gauged), the colour, how much of the load is rotten (if above a certain level, the road can be rejected), and the day’s temperature.  The growers are given a printed read out of this information. 

When the grapes are accepted, they are dropped into a tank.

Here are the grapes in the tank, which has a giant screw at the bottom.  

We went downstairs to where the tank is located and watched the next part of the process.


The grapes pass through the screw, where the grapes are pressed and the chaff (skins, leaves, twigs etc) is rejected. 

The juice is mixed in with that of other growers.  Depending on the resulting colour, it becomes red or rose wine.  This co-operative produces a Bordeaux superior wine.


The chaff is taken by conveyor belt back up to the surface and dropped into a large skip. 

 I forgot to ask what they do with it!

The wine is kept in giant stainless steel maturing tanks.  On the 31^st July (2012), this wine can then be purchased as 2011 wine.


So, if like me you still retained ideas that wine production is all terribly romantic, think again.  Grapes are still picked by hand (mostly by East Europeans travelling through the countryside), but it is becoming increasingly mechanised.  Susan at Clos d'Yvigne told us that when they pick the last grapes, they have a party during which they tread grapes. 


On a sadder note, we learned on this trip that the man who owned the vines at the top of our road, died last year.  Some of you may remember the story of his coming to visit my friend Kathi and I at La Roue.  He swerved (rather drunkenly we thought) onto the front lawn, proffered a bottle of red wine and asked me for a kiss.  My coy refusal sent him back to his car for a second bottle, this time rose!  I took the wine but kept my kisses.  Kathi and I spent the rest of the holiday spotting and hiding from him.  He was actually a rather sweet old man.