Wednesday, 30 September 2009

 

If you’ve enjoyed the blog… if you’re in the wine trade… and perhaps looking to hire!  I would love to hear from you – click on the hyperlink on my name above and send me an e-mail.

 

I am looking for employment in the wine trade, for preference in Portugal or France.  My greatest interest is the viticulture, but I have a range of skills from a business background which would be applicable in the office, in tourism, you name it. 

 

Next week I go to Portugal for 9 days, to perform reconnaissance on my chances of employment in Oporto, and whilst there I hope to get up to Pinhão and finally see some of these legendary quintas and vinyards for myself. 

 

Meanwhile, to tide us all over till then, another picture from last July in Gaia… love the sense of the height of the hill from here.  Wouldn’t it be nice to walk up that hill every day to work?  Sigh…

 

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.