Wow what a way to start the harvest, the weather was beautiful but oh so hot, 36 degrees, which translates to about 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Not a cloud in the sky and not a breeze to be felt. Ugh. Luckily we have some very dedicated and crazy friends who labored under the hot Provençal sun in order to help us bring in the first of our grapes! It was so exciting! Each picker had a bucket; once their bucket was filled they dumped it into a waiting box, which we then loaded onto a trailer behind the tractor.  Finally when we had collected all of the boxes we loaded them into a rented van and zoomed them back to the house. All of the grapes go through a destemmer and are then pumped directly into our newly installed vats. We then put in the “drapeau” or cooling plate. This is a stainless steel panel that circulates very cold water through it in order to bring down the temperature of the grapes. Since it was so hot outside, we were very glad to have purchased the equipment at the last minute! We got about a third of the vat full before the heat got the best of all of us, so we called it a day. Pictures will come tomorrow when my dad arrives with the cable for my mom's camera!