Wednesday, 23 September 2009

 

Collected my pay from Anne Saturday night, and later sat staring at the euros and finding it hard to connect the dosh with the work.  Somehow the friendships formed during the harvest and the memories of events both in and out of the vinyards are a far more real and tangible reward to me than the pile of euro notes in my hands.

 

One note, I hope comes to the attention of the right person:  in reviewing the blog statistics the other night I found I was getting referrals from Mark Squires’ chat page on erobertparker.  To the gentleman who kindly posted the link to my blog and referred folks here – thank you!  I am not a subscriber, so was unable to email you through that site to let you know, but that was very kindly done, thank you.

 

Back in Old Blighty now, have already met up with Simone again at a tasting in London yesterday, and will resume trying to find permanent employment in the wine trade.  I imagine the blog will be quiet for a little while here, till I have work – or a bottle of wine! – worth recording.

 

I will close this little chapter with a random but pretty image – last Thursday when Paul and I went over to Morey St. Denis to meet his friends at Domaine Lucie et August Lignier, we drove on a little chemin along the top of the hill.  This view would be from the top of  Les Rouges I think, and the Chateau du Clos de Vougeot would be just offstage left.   Notice grapes not yet harvested.  Love the heat/humidity haze over the distance and the sense of hillside running down.  And the thought of all those lovely hectares (and by extension, hectolitres!) of pinot noir…

 

Saturday, 19 September, 2009

 

Rained overnight, and then started showering again as we went up to the Haute Côtes de Nuits vinyards, over near Concoeur.  The plateau up there dead level and an area of mixed production – vines, all the currants and raspberries and strawberries for Fruirouge, and some other fields that were ploughed up at the moment but I think are used for cereals.

 

We harvested like madmen in that rain, and when it stopped after about an hour, you could distinctly hear the slowdown of secateur snipping.  Again mud and weeds clinging in massive quantities to our boots – we were issued parkas and wellies before we left the domaine.  But as yesterday, it all lifted and cleared and by lunch time the sun was out and we were down to only essential layers when we finished up after lunch.

 

I asked whether the rain the past few days would affect the grapes much, and was told no – it had been dry enough long enough over the season and at this stage the grapes were ripe enough that the showers the past few nights and odd shower during the day would make no difference to the quality of the harvest. 

 

And just as last year, suddenly we were all done, that was it, and I felt utterly bereft.  There is still the Haute Côtes Blanc Cuvée Marine to get in, but that won’t be ready for another week – Anne expects to harvest it next weekend, the 26^th or so, but I cannot stay for that. 

 

Soggy but slowly drying coupeurs on the haute côtes mid morning:

 

 

 

Friday, 18 September, 2009

 

Jan van Roekel joined us today at Domaine Anne Gros and did a day’s harvesting; I know he will spend the weekend at Domaine David Clarke in Morey St. Denis, do look at his site for his photos and more on his perception of the harvest across the region: http://www.burgoholic.com

 

We resumed harvesting today after four days off, beginning with the Bourgogne Blanc, a small parcel to the east of the N74 and railway lines.  Overcast but mild, there had been rain overnight but the ground was firm, and we got the grapes harvested in good time, just two hours I think, pausing only to wave to the commuters in the trains passing by.

 

Then to the Chambolle Musigny, Combe d’Orveau.  I’ve drunk this wine several times this week, and it is lovely, it may be my favourite of hers.  Beautiful vinyard in the tail end of the combe, the entire parcel from this break back to the end is hers, just over one hectare.

 

 

You can see there was still some high fog and overcast (about 10:15 I think), but that all burned off by mid day, and after lunch it was really very warm and blazing sun, so much so that after an hour or two I felt a little sick and dizzy and switched teams to harvest in the shadow that was beginning to creep down the southwest side of the combe.  Also the ground here was softer and muddier, and with all the herbage underfoot, you found yourself with a kilo of mud and weeds clinging to each boot… slows you down a bit!  Grapes in good condition, some pourriture but again nothing like last year, and that whiff of that lovely smokey scent occasionally, also thyme. 

 

There was noticeably more insect life here – I suppose with the patch of grass in front and the woods all around, also Anne letting things grow between vines, it’s a cosy ecosystem for the little darlings.  After  lunch I sat with a friend leaning against the wall of the domaine in the sun, and we were discussing this, when he said, “as a matter of fact…” and reached to pull an insect out of my hair.  I noticed one on his collar.  He spotted another tangled in my plait… all I could think of was the National Geographic specials of the baboons in Africa picking fleas off one another!!  Later in the afternoon I startled the crew with a small shriek and begged the man in the next allée to harvest the grapes for me from his side – my side of one entire vine was blanketed with a cobweb and there was a seriously huge ugly translucent yellowey white spider in the middle.  He laughed till he saw the spider himself, and then cut the grapes as quickly as he could and from as great a distance as possible!  I really cannot bear spiders…

 

Jan and I and the three Belgian guests from the gite all had dinner together at Chez Guy in Gevrey Chambertin.  Excellent meal and service, wonderful company and good wines.  At least two of the men had escargots for their starters and said they were the best they’d had yet, and I had a lovely composed salad of lightly cooked mini vegetables with generous shavings of summer truffles.  The truffles were so fragrant, and in an odd reversal, I was trying to place the nose of the truffles amongst some wines I had had, possibly mature Mascarello nebbiolos, a Cigliutti barbaresco, or some Lisini pre-phylloxera wines I once tasted (interestingly no french wine came to mind).

 

We had three wines with dinner, the first bottle 2006 Bourgogne from Bachelet, and the second 2002 Gevrey-Chambertim from Serafin, both excellent, real pleasures.  After that, I said I couldn’t possibly have more, I had to wake up and harvest the next day, and shook my head when the sommelier offered a fresh third glass.  I didn’t hear what they ordered, and when the bottle was placed on the table, it was turned so I could see only the first letter C of the name – but I recognised the script instantly – Domaine Georges Roumier’s Chambolle Musigny 2006 – and begged the sommelier to bring me that fresh glass after all… of course we were drinking it too young, but as always with Christophe Roumier’s wines, a sensual and complex mouthful.  Bliss… I took the cork home for souvenir (though I did NOT sleep with it under my pillow as my friends expected!  But only because I was afraid of losing it).  Nice end to the day.

Thursday, 17 September, 2009

 

[late postings – apologies – power issues with british laptop versus french electricity, now resolved!]

 

Yesterday had a pleasant surprise – Jan van Roekel called and stopped in for lunch, he has been visiting various vinyards, working at some.  All indications from his many sources are that the harvest is a good one.  Elodie came in while we were chatting, and said Anne is very pleased as well – probably less than 2% of the grapes from her own vinyards were discarded from the sorting tables, so little pourriture, and so wonderfully ripe.   The harvest was compared to 2005, maybe better. 

 

Rained over night a bit, morning foggy, walked into Nuits St. Georges to fetch gougères for breakfast, a bit eerie wandering through the vines, could only see maybe a kilometre ahead around 8:00 AM – name that vinyard if you can!!

 

 

 

On the way back it had lifted a bit and I could see about 3 km by 9:00.  It did finally lift altogether and turn into a warm if hazy sunny day by noon or so.

 

Don’t think I have mentioned, but staying in Anne’s gite are a trio of Belgians on holiday.  Well, semi-holiday.  Christian and Martine have done a couple days’ harvesting work at Domaine Lucie et August Lignier in Morey St. Denis, and today Paul and I drove up to see them at lunch time – Kellen Lignier had finished her harvest that day, and extended the invitation to the celebratory lunch to Paul, whom she knows from previous domaine visits, and Paul kindly brought me along too. 

 

Celebrations in full swing, Kellen decked in a fabulous vine wreath on her head and huge smile, she is very pleased with her harvest. 

 

After visiting her cellars under Castel de Tres Girard all four of us went up to Gevrey Chambertin and took a walk up along Clos St. Jacques, which had been harvested as far as I could see.  Then along the top of the hill, and down through the vinyards to the road through the combe, Les Verroilles was not yet harvested.  Driving back, could see some vendangeurs in Mazis Chambertin and elsewhere, the harvesting seems to be spread over a longer period of time this year versus last, you see a few teams each day dotted around the hillsides.

 

View from the top of Clos St. Jacques down to Gevrey, around 15:00 in the afternoon, you can almost feel that warm hazy sun.

 

 

Wednesday, 16 September 2009

 

Anne has split her harvesting as some of the grapes were not yet ripe.  Still to go, probably starting this Friday, are the Haute Côtes de Nuits rouge et blanc, a little Bourgogne Blanc and the Chambolle Musigny Combe d’Orveau.  She is very kindly allowing me to continue to lodge here so I can resume work for this second tranche.

 

Monday Simone and I walked into Nuits St. Georges for groceries, then spent the day catching up on our respective blogs;  yesterday I walked up to Chambolle Musigny where I had hoped to find work for these off days, but no luck, the vigneron for whom I wanted to work said he had a complete team and didn’t need any more.  Rats.  Simone made a wonderful soup for dinner and we consoled ourselves with a bottle of rather nice Santenay 1er cru Beaurepaire 2006 Domaine Chanzy (Bouzeron, Sâone et Loire) – they make both white and red from this vinyard, we had the red.

 

By the way – conditions update – Monday was cool but sunny, Tuesday was cold and overcast, and late afternoon, perhaps 16:00, there were some light showers, not even that, call it the odd dribble.  Today, so far (almost noon) it’s distinctly milder and started overcast but is getting brighter.

 

This morning, Simone took off to visit Oporto and the Douro (I am insanely jealous), and I walked around to the cuverie.  As I came around the back of the building, the pong of fermentation was overwhelming and not terribly inviting.  They have to leave the big garage doors either end of the building open about six inches over night otherwise the buildup of CO2 would probably kill you on contact when you walked in in the morning.  During the day while they work, one door is pretty fully opened for both light and air. 

 

I found them doing the first of two daily remontages.  As the wine ferments the skins and pips and stems rise to the top of the vat, creating a cap; remontage is the act of pumping the liquid wine from underneath back up and over the cap, thereby re-combining the two a bit.  The more time the skins etc. spend submerged, the greater the extraction of colour and flavours into the wine.

 

First they force down through the cap a big cylinder, perforated at the bottom end to let the wine into the cylinder – this creates a source of wine to be pumped back over the top which will be free of skins and gunge that might bung up the pump and hoses.

 

 

Then they get the hoses organised – one drawing clear wine out of the cylinder, another pouring it back over the top of the cap.  This runs for about 20 minutes.

 

 

Alternatively, one performs pigeage – this is manually pushing the cap down back under the wine.  I asked Pascal why choose one or the other, he said the pigeage is done on very small vats, like this one, which holds Vosne Romanée.  Here’s what the cap looked like before we – actually I – began the pigeage.  That broom stick has a sort of inverted colander on the end, better picture shortly.  Pascal made one pass, then handed it to me, and as I began he cautioned me, “Doucement, doucement” – gently, gently.

 

 

By the way, that vertical grey pipe cylinder – again, that’s put in temporarily so they can draw out a sample of the wine sans pips and skins and all to perform their chemical analysis.  Pascal let me taste the Echézeaux, Bourgogne Rouge, Richebourg and Vosne Romanée.  Less than a week old and the wines are still quite sugary and sweet like a child’s fruit drink, and the colour is a slightly cloudy but very decidedly pink, like a dark cyclamen, but already you can distinctly taste the wine character – more pronounced fruit character in the Richebourg and Bourgogne Rouge, and fruit plus earth, herb or spice in varying degrees in each the Echézeaux and Vosne Romanée.  The Echézeaux was the first thing we harvested, so this was day six in vat, and it was the darkest nearly-red and least sweet (though still no sensation of alcohol), as you would expect, whereas the Vosne Romanée and Richebourg were really bright pink and sugary, as they have had only about 3 days.  The first part of the Vosne was harvested the first day, and is in the blue vat, but the Vosne that was harvested Sunday is being fermented separately, in the little stainless steel vat pictured here.   

 

When you hold your hand over the cap, you can feel the heat rising, it’s very warm.  Elodie and Pascal added carbon ice (dry ice) to cool it down.  Here’s Elodie dropping in a bit of ice and Pascal pushing it down under the cap.

 

 

As the ice melts in and reacts, not only do you get smoke pouring out, but you can distinctly hear the sound of simmering, and see the surface of the smoke on the vat burbling up.  Real Macbeth three witches’ scene stuff.  Stand back!

 

 

When it has simmered down a bit, Pascal opened up a hole in the cap (all I could think of was ice fishing!) and the carbon ice bubbled up again one more time.  Better shot of the pigeage instrument here, too.  You can tell how much it has cooled (not in the photo but in life!) – whereas before I could feel the heat with my hand six inches above the cap, after the carbon ice was added, I had to hold my hand much closer, maybe two inches, to feel any warmth.  Also the side of the tank was icy cold where the smoke had poured down.

 

 

The photo may look blurry, it’s not, that’s the haze of lingering carbon ice smoke.

 

Anne’s lineup of vats, from left to right, the three big stainless steel are the Savigny, Nuits St. Georges (the two negoçiant wines) (both 38), then her Echézeaux (??), then the blue vats are Chambolle Musigny (50), Haute Côtes de Nuits (50) (both empty at the moment), then two vats for the Bourgogne Rouge (50 & 45), the one behind the ladder is the Richebourg (37), then out of sight continuing to the right are the Vosne Romanée (24), Clos Vougeot (50) and Chambolle Musigny (50) (empty), and that little round vat in front of me is the rest of the Vosne Romanée (9). 

 

The numbers after each wine name are the capacity, in hectolitres, of the vat – but not necessarily how much wine will come out of it, of course.

 

 

So, doing a little maths here… a hectolitre is 100 litres.  Taking the Richebourg as an example – 37 HL capacity, let’s call it 35 (can’t recall right now how full it really is).  So 3500 litres makes 4600  750 ml bottles, which would be about 380 cases (I am rounding a bit).  You know not all of that goes into the market, Anne holds some back for her own cellar, and of course that starting 35 hl fill of the vat would include the cap which ultimately gets left behind, so actually you are getting less than 35 hl of liquid wine, really… so ratchet all those numbers down.  You get the drift.  Tiny quantities.  Anne has something between 6 and 7 hectares of vinyards, total. 

 

Yesterday as I was wandering around the vinyards and Nuits St. Georges, I saw a number of vans coming in decorated with flowers and tooting their horns – they had finished their harvests.  And I am hearing more of that outside the domaine this morning as I write.

 

Also yesterday I heard from Jan Van Roekel, the dutchman who writes the Burgoholic website ( http://www.burgoholic.com ), who had spent the day harvesting David Clarke’s Vosne Romanée.  He said David won’t harvest the rest of his wines until the weekend. 

 

During my wanderings, I did see someone harvesting mechanically in Nuits St. Georges, but I did not have my camera on me.  Last year I had seen a mechanical harvester parked in a shed in Concoeur (the tiny village near the Haute Côtes de Nuits vinyards), and it basically has conveyor belts of combs between the tires which rake up the bunches off the vines and dump them in a bin.  I will keep an eye out for another one.  Simone and I did find a tractor out in the vinyards when we were walking one evening, and I took a peek to see if it was a harvester, but no, just a normal tractor, randomly left parked in the vines. 

 

 

Sunday, 13 September, 2009

 

Cool slightly cloudy morning which cleared off and warmed up wonderfully.  Working with a small team (7, 8 or 9 depending who was counting!!) who all knew one another well by now, was really very pleasant. 

 

In this vinyard, as in some others, there were a few odd vines, which being ripe were harvested and thrown in with the pinot noir.  In this case, three lovely bunches of  chardonnay.

 

 

We finished the Richebourg, a bit on the lower ground and then the entire upper parcel.  As we were walking back to the cars, Pascal pointed out Lalou Bize-Leroy’s vines in Richebourg.

 

 

I hope you can see – the vines are not pruned off across the top, but rather wrapped round in big spirals.  Lalou Bize-Leroy was one of the earliest proponents of bio-dynamic methods in Burgundy.  I have had her St. Vivant, and my notes have it triple starred as my favourite of that night’s tasting of a range of Vosne Romanée wines.  We also passed by the domaine Romanée-Conti’s parcel of Richebourg, and the vines are incredibly old, huge things, someone said close to 100 years old, some of them.

 

Before leaving Richebourg, we took a (most of the) team photo:

 

 

Most importantly, the front row is comprised of Jean-Luc, Elodie and Anne Gros.

 

From there to Vosne-Romanée Les Barreaux to finish the last of that parcel.

 

Adjacent to Anne’s parcel are some vines that are thoroughly neglected; apparently whoever owns them decided hard drinking was easier than hard work and the parcel has just gone to wrack and ruin.  There were a few evil looking grapes, but it was a heartbreaking sight.  We were trying to figure out whether amongst us we could raise the money to buy it and set it to rights.  Lottery winnings in four countries ought to just about suffice.

 

 

We finished up the Vosne-Romanée and headed back to the domaine.  When we got there, we found Anne and Patrick at work on the sorting table, and deliveries of grapes being made.  This year, for the first time, Anne will make two wines as a negoçiant, and these were the Nuits St. Georges village grapes being delivered and sorted.  They were arriving in small tea crates which Pascal and Jean-Luc were tipping out onto the table by hand, so they could be very carefully sorted.  Sadly, there was a lot of pourriture and unripe grapes that had to be weeded out to meet Anne’s standards. 

 

As the work had to be completed before we sat down to lunch – you can’t stop and start – we all pitched in to do what we could to help.  On the sorting table in the photo below are Anne, a woman whose name I don’t know, and the backs of Simone and Patrick.  Madame Gros is using a sort of window washing squidgy to make sure the grapes that drop down from the de-stemmer get onto the little conveyor belt to take them up into the vat, and Anne’s youngest daughter, Marine (perhaps about 8 to 10 years old), is busy stamping down the stems and discarded grapes to make more room in a vat which will later on be emptied on a compost heap somewhere.  Off stage are other folks, emptying bins of reject grapes and stems from the sorting table and de-stemmer into Marine’s vat, tipping tea crates full of grapes into the sorting table, washing the emptied tea crates, etc. etc. 

 

 

In the view below Elodie is standing ready to clear down stems from that chute into the bin.  The two stainless steel vats on the left are the new ones – I’d seen them standing outside the day I arrived – for the negoçiant wines.  The one in progress is the Nuits St. Georges, as I said, and the left hand one will be used for a Savigny (due to arrive Monday).  The right hand vat contains Anne’s Echézeaux, and then you can just glimpse the first of her concrete vats, painted that bright blue, containing (or about to contain) all her other wines.

 

 

When the sorting was completed and all grapes in the vat, all the equipment was  washed down and made ready for the next batches of grapes to be sorted – the last of the Richebourg and Vosne Romanée – after lunch.

 

And then we had quite a lunch!!  To celebrate the conclusion of the first part of the harvest work, we started with a NV Cremant de Bourgogne Vitteault Alberti – excellent – nice delicate citrus and yeast notes and lovely persistent but delicate petillance.  Then – from slightly hazy memory – we had 2007 Haute Cotes de Nuits Blanc Cuvée Marine (very rich dense orchard fruit, a little citrus, dry of course, nice lingering finish) we had some of the bourgogne rouge 2007, and I think there were bottles of 2007 Clos Vougeot.  What does stand out in memory is the 1995 (yes really! That I DO remember clearly) Vosne Romanée [earlier reported as Clos Vougeot, guess I didn't remember so clearly, a friend corrected me!)  and 1999 Chambolle Musigny Combe d’Orveau.  Oh sublime… The Vosne Romanée all earth, stone, herbs blended in with the ripe fruit and the Chambolle just wonderful dense spice, fruit and smoke.  The pain all went away again… 

Anne decanted the Vosne Romanée, and the Chambolle Musigny was served from its bottle.  At dinner (roughly five or six hours later I’m guessing), when we finished the two older vintages, the Vosne had opened a bit further but was by no means falling over, and the Chambolle was holding rock steady.

 

Final image to sum up the day and in fact the whole four days of harvest work :

 

 

Saturday, 12 September, 2009

 

How lucky can a girl get?  Very …

 

 

Yes, Cynthia on a tractor.  And better still… all those grapes?  Richebourg.

 

[this has turned out rather a long posting – get tea now]

 

The morning began with getting in the last of the Bourgogne Rouge.  Little new to say there, except for one slightly off piste observation. 

 

Some at least of my audience will be familiar with a film called Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis (huge thank you to the friend who gave me the DVD).  The rest of you should watch it if you can, it’s a stitch even if you don’t understand a word of the french, as I can attest after three viewings.  Ch’tis are kind of like Geordies, or Glaswegians – they are the folks who live up north and talk very strangely and unintelligibly.   The story is essentially, man from Marseilles (deep and sunny south of France) is told he has been transferred to strange, frightening, foreign and cold north of France, the area around Calais and Lille.  After a very rocky start, he enjoys it all despite himself, and is gutted to leave after two years to return to Marseilles.  A lot of the humour in the film has to do with word play – how things are pronounced by the Ch’tis versus the usual french, and misunderstandings that arise, and this southerner learning to speak and comprehend the local dialect.

 

The reason I bring this up is that amongst our gang this year we had un vrai Ch’ti.  As best I can describe it, the Ch’tis gargle their french like mouthwash.  The guy naturally took a lot of teasing, but he gave as good as he got, and the banter (and just the sound of his voice) was hugely entertaining as we slogged through all those bloody great fat grapes for the Bourgogne Rouge. 

 

As we were finishing up that vinyard, I did get one good classic shot of the pannier in action.  At one point I asked how much those things weigh, filled, and the answer was about 65 kilos – rather more than I do.  I declined the offer of playing pannier for the day.  For those unfamiliar from last year’s blog, the coupeurs cut the grapes and dump them in big garden type buckets which are periodically emptied into the pannier – the giant bucket carried on the back of the man who is also called pannier, when you holler out to him to come round so you can empty your bucket into his, and he can them dump his bucket onto the sorting table.  (See last year’s blog in the folder on left for details about sorting the grapes.)

 

 

Better things were in store, however… namely, Clos Vougeot and Richebourg.  We spent the latter half of the morning and early afternoon in Clos Vougeot and later afternoon in Richebourg. 

 

We harvested the bourgogne rouge in cloud cover, but the sun came out when we went to Clos Vougeot (wouldn’t you?), and as those vines run east-west, you have the sun warming the eastern side of you as you work, it’s really quite nice. 

 

Bucket full of Clos Vougeot – we punters were guessing a full bucket like this might make three or four bottles of wine, that seems high to me, I must check with Anne or Pascal.  Note also the soil – dry, loose, stoney.  Or put another way, earth, mineral…

 

 

 

You may recall my allusions to Pinot Beurot (Day One of this harvest and my 11 July Conditions entry) – well, I met them again in Clos Vougeot and this time had a camera handy.  Gorgeous colour, really glowing peachy rosey mauvey apricotty…

 

 

Another thing in this picture – see the far right cluster, some grapes look sort of collapsed balloon like?  That is what pourriture does – a sort of mould.  If you trim out those sad little things with the tip of your secateurs, you will find some grey gungey mould around the central stem underneath these poor darlings.  And yes, the odd vine’s worth of Pinot Beurot or Chardonnay grapes does get blended in with all the Pinot Noir in the wines. 

 

From there to Richebourg.  Anne’s parcel is either side of a low retaining wall – the westernmost vines are a few feet higher at the low end and are on a slope rising to the west, the ones east of the wall are on flat land.   This photo taken looking south, so east is to your left.  Also, fyi, it was taken Sunday morning about 8:15, hence the sunlight from the east.  See how the allée in front of me takes a zig to the left?  That’s where the retaining wall is.  I know this looks as if it is all a bit of a rise, but if I had a wider angle you would see the more pronounced rise on the right hand side.

 

 

Last year I remembered thinking the grapes were different on the two parcels but by the time I wrote in the evening I was too tired to remember what that difference was.  Basically:  age.  The vines on the upper parcel are very old, 50 years or more, mostly, though Anne has had to grub up and replace selected vines (one of my April postings has a photo of a baby vine).  The grapes, broadly generalising now, are smaller on the older vines – more intensity of flavour.

 

Lower Richebourg: 

 

 

 

Upper Richebourg:

 

 

I’m not sure the photos make it clear enough, but the lower Richebourg bunches are denser and heavier and very tightly packed, the upper ones more loosely packed of smaller grapes.  You can also see the soil is more fertile – more ground cover grows there, especially in some of the upper section, which in my mind connects with the more fruit, less earth / mineral taste versus the Clos Vougeot.

 

In all the harvesting, when you think you can’t bend over one more time, it helps hugely to be able to recall the flavour of the wine you drank last night, and focus on that instead of your back.

 

Today we got I think most of the lower parcel done, so will need to revisit tomorrow.  At the end of the day, Anne announced that she needed only a small team on Sunday to finish up the Richebourg and the Vosne Romanée, only a few hours’ work, so she did not need the big team assembled today (we were up around 25 or more, I think, several new folks arrived and one or two gone).  Those of us staying at the Domaine of course volunteered to work, and I think only one contractor was needed to make up the numbers.

 

That evening at dinner was interesting.  One of the vendangeurs is a woman named Simone, a brasilian woman now living in London.  After several years experience as a catering manager she won an award which gave her a sum of money to use to further her education and experience.  She has chosen to change gears and work as a sommelier, and has used her prize money to make a tour of California wine estates, to work the harvest here, and later this week she will go on to Oporto and visit the Douro.  When she returns to London she will be a sommelier at La Gavroche for some months, and then begin work at Michel Roux junior’s planned new restaurant in Parliament Square.  Her blog can be viewed at:  http://www.caterersearch.com/tabletalk/blogs/simone/default.aspx

 

Another of the vendangeurs is a young man who is attending the Lycée Viticole in Beaune – a four year course in viticulture, and he is doing his work experience with Anne for the first two years of his course (and is just beginning his second year).  He also plans to be a sommelier; when he finishes in Beaune he hopes to attend a sommelier school for one year. 

 

He is french, and speaks only a little english, Simone is brazilian, and in addition to her native portuguese speaks fluent english, italian and spanish.  At dinner he twigged that she was a sommelier, and apparently decided she couldn’t possibly be, as she was neither a man nor french, and decided to ask some questions clearly intended to test her and put her on the spot.  Bad mistake.  Another french guest at the house and I translated between the two of them… From memory I think he started by asking what were the burgundian grape types.  Simone rattled them right off, by region, for all of Burgundy, not just the Côte d’Or.  He raised his eyebrows, but carried on, asking about a particular domaine – she knew the domaine, and named their wines and grape varieties.  At that point she struck back and began asking him questions, starting with inviting him to name the grapes of Champagne.  He couldn’t get beyond chardonnay and pinot noir… she informed him of all five varietals (pinot noir, chardonnay, pinot meunier, pinot blanc and arbane).  We tried asking him about Chilean wines… he completely ignored that question, never even attempted a response.  He fired off a few more which Simone handled with ease.  At that point others at the table were like, Simone, how long have you been doing this?  She said you have to know these things for the WSET Advanced exam, this is the kind of question they ask you, and besides I want to know these things if I am going to be a sommelier.  She also described the meal and the wine choices she made for her competition.  She finally threw the frenchman an easy one – what is the most planted grape in Bordeaux?  He coloured up and made some facetious remark, but wouldn’t answer.  She kindly advised him it was merlot.

 

I’m going to get ahead of myself on timeline to finish this story.  The next day (strictly speaking, tomorrow morning from this posting) we were harvesting the last of the Richebourg when Pascal held up a bunch of grapes and asked the poor guy aren’t these merlot?  Someone said no, gamay, someone else said no, sauvignon blanc, someone else said no, gewurtztraminer.  I suggested tempranillo, Pascal misunderstood me and said, c’est ça!!  Topinambour!!! (that’s it – jerusalem artichoke!!)

 

That poor kid will never forget merlot for the rest of his life.  He’s young, he’ll live, but hopefully he will learn a) never underestimate a woman and b) he has a lot to learn.  Pascal summed it up when he told someone at breakfast, boy, she really wiped her nose with him last night.

 

Parting shot of the day – and some happy coupeurs at the end of the bourgogne rouge.  From left to right, Jean-François (Belgium), Simone (Brasil via London), and myself (England).

 

 

Friday, 11 September, 2009

 

Day began cool and overcast but sun was coming through before lunch, and after lunch we abandoned all but essential layers.  It’s getting so I can’t quite tell what’s sun tan, what’s dirt and what’s bruising on my forearms.

 

As we headed out, I thought it felt quieter this year – at 8:00 am you hear the roar of tractors and vans as they head out of the domains, and there are lots of people wandering around at lunch time, but whereas last year, with such a late harvest, everyone seemed to be harvesting at once, this year it seems the viticulteurs are picking and choosing their times a bit.  It may be that we are starting on a Thursday, it’s not quite so busy during the week, it may pick up with the weekend.

 

We did the bourgogne rouge today – there are four different parcels I think, we split up at one point, I personally was in three of them, I think the other team went off to harvest the fourth.

 

Behold bourgogne rouge grapes – big fat blowsy oversexed things:

 

 

This lot, in the first vinyard of the morning, were very tightly packed bunches, often wrapped around the wires or the vines, which made it a challenge to cut and detach without mangling.  Every time I puncture a grape and feel the juice trickling down my arm, I wonder how many euros worth of wine I just wasted.

 

Long day.  At the end of it, Elodie and Patrick on the sorting table:

 

 

Postscript

 

Well I don’t know about you but I thought that was rather a dull entry – couldn’t think of anything else to say though, probably sheer exhaustion.  After writing that I went down to dinner, and it all changed.

 

I will spare you a detailed account of the late night at the pool tables of Dijon, except to say the Brazilian and French duo unfortunately took two out of three from the Belgian and English team, despite some rather stunning shots. 

 

But best of all, Patrick came in for dinner with two bottles in his hand, bless…

 

2007 Richebourg and 2007 Clos Vougeot… how lucky can a girl get?  Both stunning wines, the Richebourg the more purely silky fruit event, though for me I do get a bit of clovey peppery note in the tannin after glow, whilst the Clos Vougeot is much more the expression of terroir, more earth and mineral and spice notes blended with the fruit in the palate.  Both just beautiful and inspiring to a knackered vendangeur.

 

From left to right, Brasil, England, Belgium, France.

 

Thursday, 10 September 2009

 

This may be a slightly wobbly posting, as I learned a new taste sensation this evening.  I am again staying in the “dortoire de luxe” chez Domaine Anne Gros – and one of the real treats is Madame Gros’ cooking – not only every day for lunch with all the vendangeurs, but at night, for dinner, with the other guests lodging here (two others, now, but expect three more tomorrow).  Witness tonight’s dinner: a puréed soupe légumes (all from her own garden), which is served with a good dollop or two of crème fraiche and a scattering of grated gruyere, then home made paté with a salade (all lettuces and herbs from her garden), then cheese, then crepes fresh made (a foot-deep stack of them) which could be filled with a variety of confitures, all home made.  Oh, and some gateau cassis, home made, left over from lunch.

 

But what’s really done me in  is something known as a Nikita, as it seems Kruschev rather favoured it when he visited France, namely, a glass of cheap and cheerful red wine with a good slug of cassis.  I was doubtful too, but it’s good.  Madame keeps box wines for serving with lunch and dinner, the one at the moment is vin de pays de l’Aude, something or other Ulysse, a merlot.  Cassis is one of the Burgundian specialties, look for the one from Nuits St. Georges, or in a pinch from Dijon.

 

I had two.  After a hard day’s work.  And I am no longer feeling pain.  Bliss.

 

The crew is a little different this year – many of the family and friends are not here, but will be over the weekend, so we have only 20 folks, most of them 20 years old plus or minus, who came through Manpower or similar agencies.  Chatting with them I gather unemployment is as big a problem here as in England right now.  But Guillaume is here again, who is relentlessly cheerful and talkative and keeps us all in spirits.

 

Weather perfect – warm, sunny but enough cloud to keep it from getting too uncomfortable. 

 

We began with the Echézeaux, same as last year.  The grapes are very ripe and healthy, hardly any pourriture, not like last year when it was bad, but it’s been a dry summer, I suppose that has helped.  And best of all, every now and again I have caught a whiff of that lovely smokey scent which sometimes turns up in the nose and palate of the wines. 

 

Got that all done mid afternoon then began the Vosne Romanée lieu dit Les Barreaux – this is the vinyard which is sloped steeply upward to the south, good stoney soil.  The grape clusters are particularly small – small grapes, small clusters, often multi-clusters from a single stem, hell to harvest (locating, then cutting then extricating all those itty bits without knocking off or crushing grapes).  Also met my first Pinot Beurot grape – you may recall I encountered this in wine form at Mischief and Mayhem (see Conditions, 11 June).  I had left some clusters behind on a vine because they were still quite rosey and translucent – which for Pinot Noir would mean deeply underripe.  Someone called me on it, and we asked Elodie, who said they were Pinot Beurot (the Burgundian for Pinot Gris), and to harvest them. 

 

We didn’t quite finish it, I heard Pascal say that when it was done tomorrow we were going to start on the Bourgogne Rouge.  Both vinyards today had been recently ploughed, I think, the ground quite soft and fluffy underfoot – barring the rocks, of course, and the odd thistle.  You would think harvesting uphill might be easier – not SO far to bend over – but no.  It helps immensely if you remember to pull in your abs before you bend over, or at least when you remember after, but it’s actually incredibly difficult to keep your abs tight when bent double.  Try it – get up out of that chair and try it.  Something about bending over nose to knees makes you want to puff out your abs, but the back is helped a lot if you can keep them tight. 

 

Between that effort (semi-successful) and a lot of stretches my darling osteo taught me (stretch hamstrings three different ways, then stretch the bum – yes you can!), I’m not too uncomfortable tonight.  See how I feel in the morning.

 

I did not take the camera into the vinyards today – last year I could tuck it inside my shirt, above my waistband, and it was safe, but this year I’ve lost too much weight, it would just fall down the leg of my jeans.  But I did take some photos back at the domaine, after we were through, and Pascal and Elodie and Jean-Luc were cleaning up. 

 

And you know I cannot resist a handsome tractor… That’s Pascal, by the way.  (J'adore un beau tracteur.  Et ça c'est Pascal.)

 

One bit of miraculous good luck at last - I am able to extricate myself from affairs in England for at least a little while and go back to Vosne Romanée to work the harvest chez Domaine Anne Gros again.  She expects to begin picking next Thursday, 10 September.

I will again keep a blog, but assuming all is like last year, I may not be able to post it until I return (or can sneak off to Nuits St. Georges or somewhere to an internet café). 

Meanwhile, Anne has made some updates to her website, including, most helpfully, a geneological bit - if, like me, you were confused about all the various Gros domaines (lots of cousins) - this is a huge help.  Also a good table of the drinkability of her wines going back to 1988, and lots of other more general information about the domaine, viticulture, etc.   http://www.anne-gros.com/

If you want to keep an eye on the meteo in Vosne Romanée click here   This weather site is excellent, I've even found it highly reliable for UK and Portugal weather reports too (better than the Met certainly!!)

I know I have posted this photo before, I took it last September as I walked down from Gevrey to Vosne the day before last year's harvest, but it is a favourite image - the road to Vosne Romanée winding through the vinyards.  That would be Les Musigny and Les Petits Musigny on the immediate left on the hill above the monastery and of course the Clos de Vougeot enclosed by the wall beyond it.  Then the road is flanked by, on the left, Les Grands Échezeaux (that squarish parcel behind the round blob of tree just beyond the foot of the hill), Les Treux and Les Suchots, and on the right, Les Échezaux, Les Loachausses, Les Cruots and Les Suchots.  Where the main white road seems to end, is Romanée St. Vivant, and to the right of it, probably mostly hidden by the nearby trees, is Richebourg.  Sigh... mentally tasting some of them again as I type.

I feel like the small child in the Far Side cartoon, resolutely pushing as hard as it can against the door which, somewhere high over its head, is clearly marked “pull”.  Though I have been accepted to the CFPPA course in viticulture and oenologie, I don’t think I will be able to attend after all – I will spare the details, but it boils down to sordid considerations of filthy lucre. 

 

The night before my interview my Grand Collins Robert French-English dictionary software packed up and announced it wasn’t going to work again until I fed it the original disk – which is buried in a box in deepest Kent.  It did seem a bad omen at the time.

 

The other image that comes to mind – sorry, I’m visual, things make best sense to me if I can picture them, either literally or metaphorically – is from one of the Matrix movies, when Neo is following orders barked down the phone – “Turn left!”  When he turns right, the operator barks, “No, OTHER left!!”  So, my first left didn’t work, I need to try the other left… I do not doubt I will find my niche in the wine trade, but I guess it won’t be here, as hoped.

 

There has always been another plan in the back of my mind, and now I need to piece together an approach to that.  Meanwhile, for now, I shall depart Beaune the 16^th July and wend my way down to Portugal via Bordeaux.

 

Clearing out old files from my hard drive, I found one marked Goethe, can’t think where it came from, but found it encouraging:

 

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

 

‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, magic and power in it’

 

W H Murray (from the Scottish Himalayan Expedition)

 

Have been stuck for an image for this posting, till I remembered this one taken 25 June, when I walked to Meursault:  a vinyard just over the line from Beaune into Pommard, past Montrevenots, on a guess from the map, perhaps Les Saussilles or Pezerolles, grubbed up and rough ploughed.  I walked past it again the 14^th July and they had cleared away all the stone slag to a heap up the hill behind another vinyard, and ploughed again to finer tilth, ready to start again.

 

Tuesday, 14^th July  (Bastille Day)

 

9:30 AM

 

Since 22 June when I last commented… that week was hot, sunny, clear… the Friday 26^th there was a terrific thunder storm mid-day whilst I was in Dijon, but cleared away for a sunny and clear evening.  The following week, 29^th June through 5^th July was nailingly hot, (30° ish), sunny, humid, with a little rain mid day the 30^th,  and the afternoon of the 1^st but not enough to make any difference.  The night of the 5^th there was a good storm around midnight, lasted an hour or two, but when I got up in the morning there was almost no water standing on the flat roof of the building opposite, so there cannot have been much rainfall, despite the sound and fury of all the thunder and lightning.  This past week, since the 6^th it has been cooler, temperatures closer to 20° than 30°, a mixture of sun and clouds but sun predominating, and dry as a bone.

 

Till yesterday.  Cloudy most of the day, and about 19:30 it began to rain.  That storm passed after an hour or so without much trace, but since midnight it has been raining steadily.  Great thunder and lightning for the first two hours or so, then it just settled down to raining and hasn’t really stopped since.  Occasionally it gets really heavy, then eases up, but it doesn’t quite stop altogether.  Looking out at that flat roof opposite, it is now a solid swimming pool full of water, which, guessing from how it has looked after previous storms, with puddles and high and dry spots, means we must have had an inch of rain so far, at least.  In other words, enough to make a difference and sink into the soil a bit.  Which has got to be a good thing, after so dry a month or more. 

 

Meteo when I looked last night was for showers all day today, cloudy tomorrow, and clearing for the end of the week.

 

Evening

 

Went out for a walk late this afternoon, the worst of the showers had cleared off by 14:00 ish, though it remained mostly overcast.  Walked up again to one of the Hospice of Beaune vinyards, Les Montrévenots, which is premier cru pinot noir, high on the hillside, on the line with Pommard.

 

22 June the grapes looked like this:

 

 

 

Today, 14 july they look like this:

 

 

Almost no standing puddles even on the paths, let alone in the vinyards, so I guess the vines have sucked up every drop that fell the past 24 hours.  Certainly the ground was soft and my boots were sinking in about an inch, rather than just raising dust on a rock hard surface as previously.

 

And now it’s almost 21:00 and it’s begun to rain again.

 

Update Wednesday, 15 July 2009 morning

 

It rained off and on all night, some good thunder and lightning at times, one strike was close enough to make me jump.  Today it’s a mixture of overcast and sun and around 22°, and the forecast is for sunny and warm and 31° tomorrow, then storms on Friday with the temperature back down around 21°, Saturday chance of rain and 18°.  And the forecasts have been pretty accurate, I’ve found. 

 

After writing this last night it occurred to me there had been no hail since I’d been here, not that I’d seen at any rate.  This morning’s newspaper had a photo on the front page – Monday night’s rainstorm, the one that started around 19:30 as I walked home from the internet café, apparently clobbered a village south of here with hailstones up to 600 grammes – over a pound!  The photo was of a farmer’s livestock barn, and the corrugated roof was riddled with holes where these hailstones had crashed through.  Apparently houses and cars had broken windows, electricity and phone lines were lost, and crops ruined – both those still standing in the field and those already stored in barns where the hail broke up the roof or windows and let all the rain in.  Another photo showed someone holding several of hailstones – each about the size of a nectarine.  The village was Aubeny la Ronce, which is about 7 miles west of Meursault.  The story did not mention damage in any other communities – which is not surprising, these things are incredibly local.  David Clarke told me of one hailstorm that wiped out some vinyards near his in Brochon, I think it was, a few seasons back, but luckily his vines were untouched.

 

The article also said Monday night’s orage was the most violent known in Burgundy since 11 July 1984, and put the rainfall that night at 20 to 30 litres of rain per square metre, and up to 70 litres in some places. 

14 July, 2009

 

This entry is pure self indulgence, so feel free to scroll past unless, like me, you have a thing for walls.

 

For starters, and what prompts the photos, is just the love of the colours and textures,   I want to interpret them in knitting or quilting.  I am also fascinated by the little ecosystems of flora and fauna within the walls – the stone walls which divided most properties in Connecticut where I grew up, roughly made of granite boulders piled up as best could, were heaven sent homes for chipmunks and snakes and often covered in thick moss, as they were in deep woods, at least on our property.

 

Here in the vinyards, the walls are mostly dry stone walls, beautifully fitted together.  Only the more recent repairs or replacements use a bit of cement between layers, the older ones now have lichens, drifted soil and plants to help hold them together.  Being out in blazing sun and heat they are home to little lizards – and probably other things I haven’t seen yet (and may not bear thinking about!).

 

But I also love walls for the metaphors to which they lend themselves, the ideas of protection, defense, secretiveness.  Think of Errol Flynn, single handedly holding off dozens of bad guys, and how could he?  Because he usually manoeuvred so he had a wall at his back for defense.  If he was fighting with his mates, they usually fought back to back, to provide that same wall-like protection and defense for their backs.   Think of the pathos of Andromache on the walls of Troy saying good bye to Hector knowing he wouldn’t return again from the battle, begging him one last time to stay, addressing him as her “strong husband” and the word for strong (θαλερος) is the same one used repeatedly throughout the Iliad to describe the walls of Troy themselves, so conveying that idea that he is her defence, her protection, and without him she will be … defenceless.  Think of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden – the magic could only have happened because the garden was entirely enclosed and hidden behind walls.

 

I also like them because so often they are so beautiful, and like William Morris I find it very satisfying when utility possesses beauty too.

 

Enough… a tour of some of my favourite walls here in the Côte d’Or:

 

This one along one side of the Rue Curley, which leads out of Gevrey Chambertin up to the Clos des Ruchottes, wonderful lush house leeks amongst other things:

 

 

Or the one around the Clos des Ruchottes, a wonderful massive solid thing, which actually ends just out of sight on the left hand side.  The wall to the right (note the stone-tiled roof!) continues unbroken up the hill, and meets the massive rear retaining wall, probably eight to ten foot high solid concrete, above which is a road and the forest.  If you have ever tasted Ruchottes Chambertin – I’ve had Christophe Roumier’s 1999 and 1995 – you would understand the desire for such solid defenses!  Sublime.  Definitely a treasure to be guarded and strongly defended.

 

 

The wall at Les Avaux, here in Beaune, I’ve previously posted a photo of the archway to this vinyard, this is the interior wall to the left of the arch – wonderful patchwork of textures with all the repairs, and the tree proved stronger than the wall, apparently.  Don’t mess with mother nature!

 

 

This one, still in Beaune, the modern arch integrated to the old wall – you can see the old wall is dry, the newer insertion used some cement between layers.

 

 

The wall to the left of the arch above, again older and dry.  Serious about not wanting folks to sit on that wall!

 

 

Walking from Beaune up over the shoulder of the hill towards Pommard, another wall seriously opposed to folks wanting to sit down.  I love how the old vine stumps are almost indistinguishable from the stones.

 

 

For a different mood, this is the north wall enclosing the Parc de la Bouzaize.  To walk out of Beaune to the west, towards Les Teurons, one way is out the Rue Faubourg de St. Martin, with this wall on your left, and the high decaying-stuccoed wall of the Domaine Voiret on your right.  This road is entirely shaded by trees from the park, so good moss…

 

 

… and dozens of other flora have taken root in the interstices, ferns, conifers, you name it.

 

 

And finally this one – very different, absolutely modern, about seven or eight feet high, and rather gorgeous, the picture doesn’t do full justice to the tawny rosy colour of the stone.  The magic of this one is its secrecy – all this artistry for something deeply buried in a thicket between vinyards and not visible unless like me you stumble into it.  I had clambered up to the top of quite a steep vinyard, and didn’t really want to walk all the way back down to the road to continue south into the next one.  But the next vinyard was at a considerably higher level, above an old dry stone wall – very like the ones above.  So I kept walking up into the thicket, hoping maybe the levels of the two vinyards would converge and I could climb or step over the wall between.  Instead, the difference in levels got greater – and the wall had been repaired with this magnificent piece of work.  Off to the right I found a narrow break in the modern wall which incorporated an older stone stairway, which took me up to the level of the next vinyard.  From there I had to do some more bushwhacking through thicket before I came out into the vinyard.  Looking back from either vinyard, you would never have known there was a wall, a drop, anything.  Magic.

 

 

 

Monday, 6 July, 2009

 

No, not a tacky holiday resort in the Caribbean, but an extraordinary evening in Paris.

 

Spent the last weekend in Paris, and on the Saturday night made plans to have dinner with the friends who have been so hospitable every time I passed through.  In the event, the plans were to visit a friend of theirs and have dinner chez that gentleman.

 

Into the Metro, and I was told we were going to Pigalle – the significance of this was lost on me, till the hasty assurance, the NICE bit of Pigalle sunk in.  I admit when we exited the Metro and the first thing I saw was a sort of shaded glass office block with huge neon letters flashing “Sexodrome” I had doubts there could be any nice bits in that neighbourhood … Oh dear, I think I just got in deeper…

 

Anyway, we all moved swiftly on, and several blocks later passed through a wrought iron gate into a secluded ruelle, and were admitted to the sort of grand classic stone building you think of when you picture Paris.

 

And from there, into the most beautiful and extraordinary flat I think I have ever seen.  Our host is an art collector, and possessed of exquisite taste, not only in selecting objects but creating a setting for them.  Paintings, sculptures, magnificent but empty gilt frames, furniture and flowers… and incredibly comfortable seating into which I for one sunk gratefully, having spent eight hours walking all over the Marais and the Left Bank. 

 

Now I am struggling to find words to describe the evening – in my mind’s eye I can see different snapshots of moments in the living room, dining room, a quick peek into the kitchen, and I can even hear the conversation, the different voices and especially the laughter, the sound of the corks coming free of the bottles – but how on earth to convey that entire impression in mere words on a blank page? 

 

For now I will stick to what can be described – starting with the Champagne Vilmart.  Those who know me, know I am not a fan of champagne … but this was lovely and soothing, and very gently and effectively banished from my mind all the worries and frustrated half-formed plans of the past couple weeks and left it receptive to all the pleasures of the evening ahead.  Magic.

 

Then, to table.  Starter of melon and prosciutto, and Gevrey Chambertin 2003, le Prince de Bourbon Parme.  Would not have thought of a red to accompany such a starter, but then, such a red… very smooth red and black fruit and integrated tannins, balanced.  Bliss.  Moved on to a main course of roast veal – a treat I’ve not had in years, given Britain’s opposition to veal.  Roasted au point, our host is a skilled chef as well, it seems.  The next bottle was of the same domaine, but a Latricières Chambertin 2001.  Very smooth again, very fine and integrated, but a step up from the prior, more elegant, a wonderful partner for the veal roast.  Beyond bliss.

 

A very well thought out cheese board, to which I did not do justice, as I stopped at the époisses, after only a brief dalliance with the chevre.  The first wine was an 80 Clos de Vougeot Domaine des Lambrays which provoked some discussion.  While admittedly past it peak, at least two of us felt there was still pleasure to be had – not just fruit but earth and spice characteristics, albeit not as pungent as might have been at peak, but no less interesting for that (think of Irving Penn’s portraits of cut flowers past their best – still objects of beauty and fascination, just of a different nature than one perhaps looks for or expects or wants every day).  Admittedly there was almost no finish, and after a half hour or so in glass the wine was distinctly less vivid than at first.  But no regrets, and stood up well to the époisses.

 

On the other hand, a good excuse to try one more bottle… again an 80 Clos de Vougeot, this one a Mommesin, and still drinking well, we all agreed, no dissenters.

 

The sort of evening that justifies tolerance of dozens of others, the sort that stays in memory for ever, and the sort that just re-enforces my love of wine and the magic it creates with food and with people.

 

Very long ago and very far away, when I was in the commodity futures markets and letting it get to me far too much, a friend once told me, when you find yourself getting upset over something, ask yourself, will it matter in five years’ time?  In five years’ time will any one know or care whether your client made or lost a thirty-second on their GNMAs or a quarter cent on their pork bellies?  All my working life, when I’ve stopped to ask myself that, the answer has always been an unhesitating no, this won’t matter in five years.  It probably won’t matter tomorrow, if I were brutally honest. 

 

But wine matters, evenings like this matter, and in five years’ time those wines will have evolved further and the pleasure they give will be different – but will still matter.  And the memory of this evening will still be with me, and hopefully the friendships and laughter as well, and those matter more than anything.

 

As luck would have it, last summer I took a photo of Latricières Chambertin, complete with tacky rucksack and water bottle (most people can’t drink and drive, I can’t drink and walk!):

 

 

 

And, across from Latricières is the hovel where I always thought, if I get really down and out and am reduced to sleeping rough, this is where I would go.  Now I’ve drunk the wine, I am even more certain of that.

 

 

 

 Wednesday, 01 July 2009

 

I really am getting rather fond of these sudden storms.  The thunder is impressive – hard to appreciate any lightning as so often the sun is too blinding, they are often one-cloud wonders.

 

It has been hotter than ---- the past couple days, which translates to about 30° I think, and humid and airless, no breeze.  Both yesterday afternoon and just now – about 15:00 – there has been maybe a half hour of good rumbley thunder to sort of warn you, then the sound of the rain pattering on the tree outside my window, and then an almighty downpour, and then it suddenly gets blindingly sunny whilst still raining, then it all moves off, but with the odd whack of thunder lest you think it’s all clear… but it does freshen the day slightly, I’m sure it’s dropped to 29° now…

 

This is hardly adequate… but… I was in my dorm room when this one hit, so the best I could do was to open the windows wide, sit on the desk, then lean out the window so I was lying on my back across the window sill to get this view to the west of the edge of the cloud in question (dear reader, there is nothing I won’t do for you!).  But it isn’t the same without the thunder to accompany it.  Must work on sound files.

 

 

 

Really, I think only Constable was ever able to make sensible pictures of clouds.

 

I walked out after this, to see if maybe I could find a rainbow, but no luck – the storm had moved north, Aloxe Corton was getting it whilst I was strolling through sparkling sunny Les Teurons, but the angle of sun to rain from where I was standing wasn’t right for a rainbow, alas. 

I have been accepted to the CFPPA course in viticulture and oenologie. 

Guess this is home now... Beaune from the hills west of town, Les Teurons 1er cru to right of that tree, I think.

Thursday, 25 June 2009

 

More about ploughing…

 

Walked from Beaune to Meursault and back today.  In Volnay I saw a tractor rigged out with all the apparatus for ploughing, conveniently parked where I could have a good look whilst the driver had his lunch.

 

 

 

Looking at it, the first thing that came to mind was Bonnie Raitt’s (in)famous lyrics “let me be your blender baby / I can whip, chop and purée…”  These tractors come with bits to do it all – plough, spray, cut, the lot.  When you have been walking in too hot sun too long and your mind is a bit wandery, they really do start to look like something from a sci fi move – maybe the Matrix movie that had the war scenes down in the home base, those robotic monster machines that the good guys used.

 

Any way… in greater detail, the charrue like bits are between front and back wheels, there seem to be three different sorts of blades going on:

 

 

 

And then the griffe behind the back wheels:

 

 

Now, I wasn’t quite sure how all this would work, but as luck would have it, when I pushed on from Volnay to Meursault, someone was actually doing some ploughing – on his lunch hour no less! – in Champans (still in Volnay vinyards, and still pinot noir, and just to my left there was a sort of milestone to indicate this was Domaine Jacques Prieur). 

 

First big difference of course, the tractor straddles a line of vines and ploughs two allées at once.  If you look really closely – which may be hard to detect in the size photo I have to post – you can see that at least part of the charrue like bits is swung out slightly to the side (that red bit on left of wheel), I assume cutting along the foot of the outer vines.  On a guess, I would imagine one of those other pieces is cutting along the center vine, and of course the mirror image is going on on the other side.  And the griffe follows on and opens up the soil after the tractor wheels.

 

 

 

When he came out of the vinyard at my end, he had quite a pile of cut weeds and stuff tangled up in the charrue blades – he backed and forthed a bit to shake it off, then turned and went up the next pair of rows – and that’s when I took this picture.

 

When I visited David Clarke in April we talked about his choices re ploughing – he is using a horse for his Vosne Romanee vinyard, but still using tractor on the others.   I don’t remember the numbers, but David quoted the relative weights of tractor and horse, and when you think about the impact – the compacting of the soil – it was  sobering.  One of the key tenets of organic and bio-dynamic culture is maintaining the health of the soil, and keeping it loose and open structured is key to this, to encourage aeration, microbial and insect life and easy absorption of water. 

 

Basically – the choice is driven by expense.  By horse is very expensive (he hires someone to do this for him) and time consuming (four passes by horse versus one by tractor, so up goes the time and expense), and of course if the weather goes against you the day you’ve booked it, bad luck, and if the horse is having a bad day and doesn’t get it all done as planned you might need to book another day or part day … you get the drift.  And it represents a new additional expense out of pocket, whereas for him to use the tractor is basically free – or rather, incurs no significant additional expense, as he’s already paid for the thing, and he can do the work himself. 

 

So, it has to be a balance between expense, time, and the expected price and market for the wine – will the wine from this particular vinyard be able to be sold at a price to justify and cover the cost of horse ploughing? 

See David's own comments in his excellent blog:  http://domainedavidclark.com/2009/01/ploughing-by-horse.html

 

Of course the dewey eyed environmentalist wants no more tractors (hunks of junk consuming all that nasty petrol!), and from the standpoint of the ideal health and optimum tilth of the soil, the horse is to be preferred.  And heck, it’s rather an appealing and romantic image – until you actually watch horse and man sweating in the blistering heat and can fully appreciate just what bloody hard work it is. 

 

But I can see the sense in carrying on with the tractors too, and honestly, having looked at the allées ploughed by each, I haven’t seen very much difference – granted as an amateur only looking as best she can from the edge of the vinyard; if you could dig down a bit, you might better realise the extent of the compaction of tractor ploughed land.  The one ploughed by tractor which I had a really good look at a few days ago – no photos, apologies – the main difference I could see was that some of the vines were a bit damaged by the blades.  In theory this shouldn’t happen – there are sensors ahead of the blades which if they hit a vine will swing the blade inward a bit in an effort to avert damage.  And they move really slowly, and the ploughman is always looking down to keep an eye on all this – as in the photo above.  Further on towards Meursault today I was walking past someone else ploughing, in vines which ran parallel with the road.  I was tired and having a good look around, so probably walking only perhaps 2 or 2.5 miles an hour – and I passed him effortlessly.

 

What can I say?  I’ve got Libra rising.  I can see both sides of the argument and sympathise with and understand the use of both, whatever my own preference might be if I had a vinyard of my own to tend (dream on…).

 

Oh… and coming back into Beaune I saw three people resting from their labours – leaning on good old fashioned hand held hoes.

23 June 2009

Too many hours spent conjugating french verbs, reading the french wine press and L’Express, plus it clouding over late afternoon, had me thoroughly blue and miserable this evening. 

 

When in the dumps, dance.

 

Out comes the iPod, in go the ear phones… and, though I expect to lose my audience at this, on goes Abba.  Yes, it’s naff… but if you need to dance the blues away, it works.  And besides, I only discovered it a month or two ago, when a friend and I stayed up way too late to “not waste” a bottle of red wine and watch Mamma Mia.  I’d never heard any of it before except Dancing Queen.  What can I say, I’ve been (still am) an extremely late bloomer in every way. 

 

After ricocheting around the room to all of Abba Gold, I figured enough of the aerobics, time for weight work (playlist includes all kinds of things – Madonna, Santana, Shakira, Tina Turner, Eurythmics, Joe Cocker, the Cars, the Rolling Stones, and various samba, mambo and afro-cuban music).  This in a space which makes real to me the concept of “no room to swing a cat.”  In lieu of dumbells, two 1.5 litre bottles filled with water.  Not so bad for bicep curls, but try doing military presses without knocking yourself out.  They aren’t heavy enough to do much for strength building, but my co-ordination is improving (ducking with every over head repetition).  The floor doesn’t bear thinking about, so I’m doing crunches on the bed, which is rock hard enough to be good for this sort of thing.  When touching toes I do them so my hair falls on the bed, not the floor – again, a test of co-ordination so I don’t knock myself out on that rock hard mattress.  I can do pushups with my hands on the foot of the bed and my heels against the wall opposite – probably a 30 degree angle, not ideal but there isn’t enough floor space to do them properly, and again I can let my hair fall on the bed.  Disentangling my hair from the ear phone wires when it was all over was a challenge…

 

You will be relieved to know I have no pictures to document this evening’s activities (whew!!) but after all this I went for a short (two mile) loop through the vinyards to the west for a meditative cool down.  I took this picture a couple days ago, I guess you can tell which vinyard it is – and it gives you a good idea of the weather lately – try to imagine about 25° warmth and a bit of a breeze when you gaze at this. 

 

Between dancing, exercising and the beauty and peace and quiet of a late evening circuit through the vinyards, blues banished.

 

Friday, 19 June 2009

 

Yesterday as I was leaving the café where I go for my wifi connection (free internet access) I paused to look at Le Bien Public – the local newspaper.  Apparently the powers that be have declared drought restraints, and there is now a ban on commercial  watering afternoons and weekends.  The article said that May is normally the rainiest month, and they had only about three quarters of the usual rainfall, but the real problem is that there was not much snow this winter, so there has not been the melt and run off they usually experience. 

 

Since it is forbidden to irrigate the vinyards anyway, under DOC rules, this sort of doesn’t make a difference to the viticulteurs, but as an indicator of conditions for the development and character of the harvest, something to bear in mind. 

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were all hot and clear and sunny, Thursday really very uncomfortable, probably 30 degrees and rather heavy and humid and the sun just relentless.  Today, Friday, it has been overcast and there have been a few showers, but nothing significant. I think the meteo is for a clear and at least partially sunny weekend. 

 

Evening walk out to the vinyards to the west, stopped to have a good look at how the grapes were coming on – quite impressed with the growth, given that budburst was only a month ago, and the grapes are already as large or larger than peppercorns.  I’m guessing I was in Beaune premier cru vinyards, Seurey or Clos de la Mousse, so pinot noir.  Neglected to bring my camera, will post a photo soon.

 

Addendum

 

Monday, 22 June 2009

 

Weekend was cloudy off and on and cooler, but dry.  Today is brilliantly sunny, some high blindingly white clouds, about 21° and very breezy (20+ km/hr).  The meteo for the week is to continue like this with steadily rising temperatures – 28° by Friday, but always clear and strong breezes.  Not a drop of rain.

 

Walked out again today, herewith promised photo of grapes – these were in one of the Hospice of Beaune vinyards, Les Montrévenots, which is premier cru pinot noir, high on the hillside, on the line with Pommard.

 

Thursday, 18 June 2009

In my last posting I mentioned a man, Stéphane, who came here from Aquitaine to learn how to plough by horse, and has helped me so much with my French in the evenings.  This morning I walked out into the vinyards to watch the ploughing lesson.  The school has its own vinyard, appellation Beaune, pinot noir, just tucked into the southeast corner of Les Teurons.

 

First, meet Kélie, the horse, and Stéphane:

 

 

I love this photo for giving you a good idea of the size and strength of that horse – Stéphane is I think nearly six foot tall – and his instructor, M. Abel Bizouard, is walking behind Kélie and is completely hidden behind her withers.  Also a clear view of the harness, and la griffe – one of the ploughs.

 

When you plough a vinyard, you actually make four passes down each allée between two rows of vines – first pass, you use la charrue, which looks like a single propeller blade with a severe twist in it, to open the soil along the foot of the left hand row of vines; you turn around at the end and return, cutting open the soil along the right hand row of vines.  For the third and fourth passes you use la griffe which has the four claws, to pass down the middle of the allée and open the soil down the centre, one pass up and then back again.

 

This picture gives you a look at both types of plough –

 

 

 

Stéphane is holding the handles of the griffe, having just returned from his second pass down the vines, and is preparing to change over to the charrue for the third and fourth passes.  You can see how big that blade is, almost knee high – and the ploughman (or woman – I have seen several working in the Côtes de Nuits) has to lean down hard to keep that in the soil as the horse pulls forward.

 

Like this – Stéphane just exiting the row after his last pass with the griffe:

 

 

When ploughing, the reins – or properly, les guides – are around the ploughman’s neck, though here he is holding them in his hands as well.

 

Finally, after the work is done, you remove all the tack from the horse and give her a  grooming, and most importantly, clean out her hooves – most good vinyard soil is pretty stony stuff, and Kélie’s hooves were packed solid with soil and pebbles, even though the soil had dried out pretty well after last weekend’s rain.  Again, a good photo to give you a sense of the size of her, but she is docile as a lamb.  Stéphane had commented previously that when he was doing things right she was very co-operative, and when he was attempting to misguide her, she showed great good sense in ignoring him till he got it right.

 

 

 

Postscript

 

Monday, 22 June 2009

 

Out walking today, stopped to take a photo of the ploughed vinyard.  It cannot have been easy for either man or beast with all those stones!  The vinyard is also used for tractor practice from the looks of adjacent allées, and Stéphane commented that when a vinyard has been ploughed by tractor for some time it takes repeated ploughings by horse to get the soil back to good open tilth – the tractors compact the soil so very much.

Monday, 15 June 2009

 

It has rained steadily since last evening, and so far today, I keep thinking of the Jimi Hendrix line “the sky is crying.”  The meteo shows it will continue all day, but be clear the rest of the week. 

 

Last night in the dormitory met a man who had just arrived from near Bordeaux, he is here for a week long course on ploughing by horse.  We got to talking, of course he twigged I was not French, and from there we spoke in a mixture of English and French, he was asking me how things are pronounced in English – “say it again – how do you pronounce? – Connecticut?”  And bless him, he gave me some very good advice on learning French.

 

He explained how as children they are taught – phonetically – for example I had trouble pronouncing the word naturalisation en français, and he broke it out to the syllables, and said pronounce it one syllable at a time for a while and then try to bring them together, you’ll get it in no time.  I’ve been trying periodically since, throughout  the evening, lying awake at night, again this morning – I think I almost have it, this morning. 

 

He pointed to the glass and said verre – v-e-r-r-e – and then pointed to the green bottle of Perrier and said vert – v-e-r-t – to make the point of how the pronounciation and the spelling and syllabification go together, and listening to him I can hear the very subtle difference and recognise each word, but trying to get my own vocal chords to co-operate and create that subtle difference… oi vey!  Must get over my own self-consciousness, even in private, and practice talking – saying these things out loud and getting used to the sound of my own voice, try to get it to go there…

 

We were talking about our decisions to pursue the courses at the CFPPA and our interests in viticulture, and how people we know have reacted to our decisions.  I quoted to him something I found years ago – as a teenager, I read Ralph Waldo Emerson (mid 19^th c American philospher and poet) and a wonderful essay of his called Self Reliance.  Since then I have always kept this quote by me, and struggled to live up to it:

 

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

 

Image du jour, actually taken Saturday whilst walking the path that runs along the top of Chambertin and Latricières – I think I had reached the latter vinyard.

 

 

Yesterday gloriously cloudless deep blue sky, warm but not uncomfortable, and a light breeze.  Good day for the grapes, and not so bad for me, either.  I took the bus up to Gevrey Chambertin in the morning then walked back down to Nuits St. George, wandering in and out of the vinyards.  Very quiet, a few people working – a woman ploughing by horse in Chambertin, a man spraying his crops by hand, the protective clothing must have been stifling in that sun, one or two tractors out either trimming or ploughing.

 

Two of the village churches were standing open as I passed, so I looked in – Morey St. Denis and Chambolle Musigny.  Both pretty austere on the exterior, but Chambolle Musigny has some extraordinary wall paintings.  They date from 1539, and were uncovered in the late 19^th century.  They are incredibly beautiful, detailed and vivid, executed in very subtle greys, and fill the sanctuary (picture below), as well as the chapels in both transepts.  The lower half of the wall is a very rich deep red on red block pattern, giving a brocade like effect.  The stone vaulting is also incredibly pretty and delicate.  Worth visiting.

 

 

 

Today, by contrast, has been overcast, the air heavy and stifling.  Sure enough, a little while ago, about 18:00, the thunder that has been rumbling for a while finally made good its promise and the heavens have opened up.  For the most part I have stayed in and studied my french – in less than two weeks I have an interview for the school, which will of course be in french.  Comment on dit “yikes!!” en français?

 

It’s 19:00 and the bells from the church of Notre Dame are ringing.  Bonne nuit. 

 11 June, 2009

 

Yesterday visited Michael Ragg of Mischief and Mayhem in Aloxe Corton.  Ex-shop manager at Berry Bros and Rudd in London, he and his wife Fiona have been here about six years, and have set up as negociants.  Very pleasant visit, I wanted to learn a bit more about his business and how they set up, I am woefully ignorant on the more commercial aspects of this business, and bless him he plied me with a few samples of their wines as we chatted – a really lovely Pinot Beuron (burgundian for Pinot Gris), a nice fresh minerally Meursault and a rich Puligny Montrachet, all 2006.  They have a handsome tasting room and offer retail sales there, I would recommend a visit to anyone passing through the region.  Take a look at their website for the full story of the firm and their very interesting range of wines:   

 

http://www.mischiefandmayhem.com

 

I asked about the conditions so far this spring, and the answer seems to be so far, so good.  April was warm, almost June like (as I can attest, see prior entries about my visit at that time), and the vines grew very well very fast, and there has been an early budburst.  The fear of course is that a late frost could have savaged all that progress, but mercifully this year May continued spring like and June is so far being very June like.  It had been quite dry – Anne Gros had commented on this too when I saw her earlier – but there has been good rain the past week, so that should not be an issue.  It rained heavily last Friday night, there were intermittent showers Saturday and Sunday, Monday night we had a stonking orage in the late afternoon after a brilliantly warm and sunny morning and early afternoon (see my prior entry about being caught in it!), Tuesday again pretty clear and sunny with only early evening showers, and yesterday again warm and sunny till evening, and there were heavy showers over night.  Today, the meteo is for a fair day, sunny, no rain.  There have been pretty fair breezes almost every day since I arrived, but I would think the rain would offset any drying effects from those

 

So far, so good…

 

So what’s a budburst? Something like this:

 

9 June 2009

 

It took longer than hoped, but I finally settled all my affairs in England, pending the sale of the house, and Monday the 1^st of June I left Old Blighty for France.  Spent the evening with a friend in Paris – the most hospitable couch I have ever slept on, many thanks to these friends who have helped me on my way to and from Burgundy so often – and Tuesday got myself down to Beaune.  Even in my severely sleep-deprived state it was a pleasure simply to wander the town and the ramparts that afternoon, Beaune is very charming.  Spent the week on logistics, gratified I was able to comprehend enough french, and be sufficiently comprehensible myself, to secure and move into lodgings and open a bank account.  Or at least, I think that’s what I’ve done…

 

Friday I completed and turned in my application to the CFPPA – Centre de Formation Professionnelle et de Promotion Agricole.  This is the school that prepares people for various aspects of the wine trade – there are courses for potential sommeliers, cask-maskers, those interested in the more commercial aspects, such as retail and negociant businesses, and then there is the course on viticulture et oenologie, required for all wine makers in Burgundy, which is the one I hope to be accepted to for September.  One good sign – I received a notice summoning me for an interview the 25^th June.

 

I am staying in the dormitory at the CFPPA – they let the rooms to non-students if there is space.  Very basic, but I’m content.  The school is situated in a park on the west side of the centre ville, so it is quiet – my window looks out into a tree, as a rule all I hear is birdsong, or during the day, some hammering or sawing from the tonnellerie (the workshop for the cask making).  Ten minutes walk to the west takes me into vinyards.

 

No luck yet as far as finding work – no reply to an email to one vigneron, I visited Anne Gros and she has nothing right now – shame I wasn’t here a week earlier, she could have used me in the Minervois, at her other domaine, alas.  I left my number in case.  I have a few more contacts to try, so… we’ll see. 

 

The other night I was lying awake in the wee hours and calculating that I could actually live on what money I have through August, even without work.  The trouble is, I need to have been working in Burgundy during the six months immediately prior to starting my course to qualify for a grant to pay the tuition.  If I haven’t found work, I can’t qualify for the grant, no grant, I have to come up with €8,000 for tuition and something more to live on, and if the house hasn’t sold by then… I simply don’t know.  Before I left England someone referred to my five year plan.  Eeek!  Right now all I have is a rough sense of what I hope to accomplish in the next year, still hoping to find work this summer in vinyards, being accepted to and succeeding in the CFPPA course, and then I will take my bearings again next spring and decide what next.  I am taking one thing at a time, and simply responding to events and deciding each next step as I go.  It is both unsettling and liberating to be living like this, after the past fifteen years as a project manager (some said project dominatrix – was I that controlling?  please forgive me…) who was trying to meticulously plan and manage events months or a year in advance. 

 

Last week was relentlessly sunny and warm, and when I visited Anne she commented on how dry it has been.  It rained over the weekend, and there was a good orage (thunderstorm) Monday afternoon – I know, I was out in it – so it feels cooler this week, though the sun is out again.

 

Monday I rented a bicycle and went about 40 kilometres or so, from Beaune as far as Morey St. Denis and back.  The vines are very fresh and lush, the blossom seems mostly over, and it seems most vines have already been trimmed down once to the level of the upper wires and begun to grow back again.  Coming back, cycling south of Nuits St. Georges through the vinyards and other crops east of the route nationale 74 around Premeux Prissey, Comblachien and Corgolin, I could distinctly smell toasted wheat – literally, there were fields of wheat or some other grain which were very ripe and toasting in the sun.  As was I.  Until the orage came up, or rather, down.  I got soaked to the skin, but actually it was warm enough it wasn’t so bad, though it’s tough to cycle in wet jeans.  And I’m getting used to all the thunder and lightning now.  When I got back to the rental shop in Beaune the sun had come out again, it looked as if maybe the storm had missed them, but I stood there, the bicycle and myself dripping puddles on the floor of the shop and told him, j’avais lavé le velo pour vous, monsieur… he cracked a smile.

 

Photo du jour – vinyards west of Beaune (ten minutes’ walk from where I am staying), taken Saturday morning 6^th June, I am guessing from my map those are villages vinyards in the foreground and premiers crus Les Bas des Tuerons and Les Grèves on the hillside, all vin rouge.  Must get to know these vinyards better, I really only know the Côte de Nuits north of Nuits St. Georges.

 

Further re April trip to Vosne Romanee

 

When Anne Gros and I finally had a chance to talk, she said she could perhaps offer me odd days of work, but nothing steady.  She was incredulous that I wanted to work in the vinyards, warning me it was hard work, in the rain and all; she had imagined that if I were to go into the trade I would look at working for a caviste or importateur.  I finally convinced her it was the vinyard work that most interested me, and she picked up the phone… the upshot was that later in the afternoon I went to Beaune and met with a gentleman at the CFPPA – Centre de Formation Professionnelle et de Promotion Agricole – to discuss the viticulture et oenologie course which begins in September.  This is the one year course required for all wine makers in Burgundy.  Bless him, M. Deboibe spent considerable time with me to explain the course, to understand my motivations, and to show me over the school.  Entirely in French.  I think I understood most of it… and took the application to complete.

 

So… that night, lay awake and formed a rough plan to swot up on French like a madwoman all summer, then take the course – September through June – and take it from there… And the course content is such that I would be well prepared to do other things as well … so if a few years of working in the vinyards knackers me utterly I will have a qualification and experience that would be attractive to negociants, cavistes, etc.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

 

The next day (Tuesday, 21 April), I visited David Clark in Morey St. Denis.  I called and introduced myself on the slenderest of pretexts – a mutual acquaintance in Jan van Roekel with whom I had worked the vendange, and having tasted his wines at Berry Bros’ en primeur in January – and David welcomed me to visit.  He showed me over his barn and cave, and then we walked through several of his vinyards, while he patiently answered all my questions about tending the vines, ploughing, etc.  David also told me a great deal about how he started up – including attending the course at the CFPPA.  What he told me – in English – reassured me I had correctly understood the French explanations the prior day, which was a relief!!

 

When we returned from the tour of the vinyards David offered me a tasting.  I hadn’t dared ask, knowing how minute are the quantities he makes, but said I wouldn’t turn down the offer.  Wise girl.  I tasted some of the Morey St. Denis 2007, which he bottled the next day (see more about this at his blog at http://domainedavidclark.com/blog.html), and then we went down to the cellar to taste a couple of the 2008s.  This was the first time I have tasted from cask, and it was fascinating.  The first two wines had not yet begun their malolactic.  What I tasted was very young but very good and interesting and balanced red wine – rather as you would taste en primeur but perhaps a bit rougher around the edges – but overlaid with a very distinct layer of tart crisp apple flavour.  If you can visualise how a layer of oil will float on top of water or vinegar, and translate that image to the experience of flavours in the mouth – you had a layer of apple floating over red wine – two very distinct taste sensations in one mouthful.  Absolutely fascinating.  But best of all was his Morey St. Denis 2008 – when he poured it into the glass it was bubbling like soda pop – it was in the throes of its malolactic.  And again, the taste sensations reflected that state exactly – the red wine was beginning to lose its rough edges and smooth out, but there was still a layer of apple flavour – though not as “thick” a layer of apple, going back to the visual image.  And what a lovely wine – wonderful earthy notes on nose and palate as you would expect from a very mature pinot noir together with all the lovely red and a little black fruit.  That night I e-mailed my beloved salesman at Berry Bros and asked him to save a case of this for me in the upcoming en primeur in January.

 

When I left, David said he was off to plough his Brochon vinyard. 

 

One thing that impresses me over and over again – everyone I have met in the wine trade has always been very gracious and friendly to wine loving strangers – I’ve not yet met a cranky or inhospitable wine maker. 

 

Image du jour:  Baby Richebourg, newly planted this winter, I think this is in Anne’s plot.  That pale brown bit just below the leaf sprout is a seal of wax to protect the join between vine and rootstock.

 

 

Sunday, 19 April 2009

 

Back in the Côtes de Nuit…

 

The vines are all cut back to their gnarled stumps and the land, viewed from the top of the ridges, is a patchwork of various combinations of brown and green stripes, depending on whether a given area has been ploughed recently, whether there is grass or other verdure allowed to grow between the vines, or whether it is very stoney, in which case it is more beige, striped with the dark brown of the vines.  Where the wires have been renewed over the winter one sees a silvery shimmering, like a mirage, when the sun glints on the shiny new wires.  New posts glare a rather flaxen colour versus the weathered silver grey of the older posts.  Many new vines have been planted, most with a pair of short posts either side to protect them from plough blades, some with some kind of plastic netting or tubing over them like a sleeve.  I wonder if rabbits are a problem?  I’ve not seen any so far. 

 

Two immense cranes loom over Vosne Romanee – one at Domaine Sylvain Cathiard et fils, another in the middle of a square of buildings, on the east side of which there is a sign about construction at Domaine Eugenie, on the north side another sign about construction at Domaine Meo Camuzet – I’m not sure, but I think the crane is at the latter site – from the south you can see the framework of a pitched, hipped roof being put into place.  The cranes are rather jarringly modern looming high over an ancient village where even newer buildings are very traditional and blend in.

 

Saturday morning early, as I walked north to Gevrey Chambertin, there was a horse tethered to its transport van, parked alongside Romanee Conti.  Later in the day, when I was wandering again, I could see a man ploughing Les Reignots with the horse, which is a rusty cinnamony colour with tow mane and tail.  Today, Sunday, he was again out, this time in La Romanee, which he seems to have ploughed entirely today, I could see him ploughing with the horse and an equally tow coloured labrador bounding alongside as they worked.  He had two horses out today, near twins, one was again tethered to the van while the other was ploughing.  Very peaceful and pastorale, the twittering birds, the view of the man ploughing by horse, and a few swallows swooping about in the early evening.

 

I can see many changes where old vinyards have been grubbed up and not yet planted, one swathe in St. Vivant, others in the Nuits St. Georges villages vinyards; also some new plantings.  There is a strip in Eschezaux which last summer was carpeted in calendula – I picked some of the brilliant orange flowers to weave into my plait as I walked away the morning after the vendange ended – which now has been planted with baby vines – tiny stubs set neatly into long ditches, the posts and wires set up and ready for them as they grow.  In other vinyards there are just odd vines replaced in amongst the older ones. 

 

New growth has begun, you see clots of leaves forming and beginning to emerge along the spurs left when the vines were pruned last winter – they are covered in a sort of peach fuzz and look like nothing so much as the first growth of antlers.

 

As usual, when I arrived by train in Dijon on Friday, I took the bus to Gevrey Chambertin and then walked to Vosne Romanee.  I was treated to my first proper orage – the notorious sudden storm of Burgundy.  It began to rain gently somewhere around Mezis Chambertin, by the far end of Clos de Beze it was raining in earnest and the lightning began, and by the time I reached Morey St. Denis I was sodden and thoroughly impressed by the way the thunder rolls down the hills and across the valley and echoes in the combes.  Mercifully I was under shelter in a little porch at the church at Morey St. Denis when the hail came pelting down, glinting rather prettily when the lightning caught and lit it up mid-air.  After twenty minutes the ground at my feet was thoroughly strewn with what looked like white peppercorns.  The storm finally abated to just a sprinkle of rain so I continued on my way; by the time I was leaving Chambolle Musigny the sun was emerging, and by Clos de Vougeot my skin was feeling lightly toasted.  The day continued lovely and mild, and it really has been gloriously sunny and warm yesterday and today. 

 

All of which I ponder as a potential omen…

 

After the vendange I again looked for a contract in the City, to no avail after the financial disasters of the late summer and autumn.  When at last something was offered me around Christmas time, I felt absolutely physically ill at the prospect of returning to an office and the financial industry.  I’m afraid I said “no” so fast and so adamantly that poor headhunter wondered what on earth he’d done to offend me when really he thought he’d found a rather brilliant opportunity.  But I felt as sick as if I’d been kicked in the stomach.  After Christmas I began looking at opportunities in the wine trade, and took my Advanced course at WSET, but none of the kinds of jobs on offer – retailing wine, sommelier positions, importers – were even remotely interesting.  I finally admitted what I’d known since I woke up in England again on the 3^rd of October last autumn – that the only thing I really want to do is return to Burgundy and work in the vinyards.  A few weeks ago I screwed up my courage – and my french – and emailed Anne Gros to ask if by any chance she needed another worker for the summer through the harvest and she replied to say she could offer me work, but not lodging.  I replied to say I would take the work and find lodgings, and come out to visit, to discuss details with her and look for a place to stay. 

 

And here I am… and we will talk tomorrow morning.  I keep thinking of something from Beryl Markham’s West With the Night, how her father sent her off to make her own way in the world with the advice to work and hope, but never hope more than you work.

 

Picking up where I left off last autumn – at the foot of Mezis Chambertin, looking up towards Clos des Ruchottes, Friday 17 April around 14:00 (if I were as meticulous as Constable, I would have noted the wind direction too… ).  It was just beginning to sprinkle as I took this photo.