It was cloudy and overcast in hamlet on Tuesday.
But the grape harvest is in full swing. We know because we've been seeing all kinds of crazy big tractors and machinery on the roads and in the vineyards this past week.
Harvest time in this part of France here differs from Burgundy and Bordeaux (where they make fancier, pricier wines) in that it is very mechanized, and doesn't rely nearly as much on labor. It relies on equipment. Big, loud, heavy, loud, spooky-looking — and did I mention loud? — equipment. I got a picture recently of what I believe is a grape harvester:
Even in the wee hours, heavy machinery is buzzing around the sleepy streets of our hamlet, trying to pluck those sweet grapes at just the right time. No, that's not the clatter of recycling being picked up at 3 in the morning, it's the rumble of vintners getting tractors out to the fields. And they say New York is the city that never sleeps.
It seemed like a good time to grab the camera and traipse around the corner to nearest winery to get some snapshots of all the hubbub.
Making your way, you must be careful of slippery grape spillage on the road:
Rounding the corner, we could see the storage vats. I rummaged around in my murse (man-purse, that is), but couldn't find a straw to dip into a vat. Rats!
As we got closer, we could see something shooting out of the main building into a big metal hopper. Leaves and twigs? Bad grapes? Spoiled lettuce from the salad bar in the employee cafeteria?
Nope. Grape stems!
One of the many tractors we'd seen rumbling around the village this week was parked at the processing area of the winery. It's a small vehicle compared with some of the crazy picking machines we've seen headed to the fields lately.
The tractor's trailer was too high to peer into, so I held up my camera for a glimpse inside — empty, wouldn't you know?
Farther along, we could see where all those tractors were headed with their trailers full of grapes. Seems like it was the day for trucking in grapes to make rose:
Tractor #6142 finally pulled away, heading out for more Cinsau(l)t:
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