Back to the vineyards. After a very rainy end of October, which we needed very badly, last week we started plouging again. Yes, it was the end of November but we had to wait until "Northern Planting Time" in the biodynamic planting calendar. In simpler terms, it's when the moon is descending, but it also has to with with the position of the constellations in relation to the moon. We use Maria Thun's Biodynamic planting calendar in order to plan all of our vineyard work. My husband Matt is going to be a "guest blogger" and explain more about what we did in the vineyards. Meanwhile back in the "cave" or winery, also in conjunction with the descending moon, we racked each of the vats off of the lees. Racking is the process of transferring wine from one vat to another in order to remove the lees, or small particles of grapes, skins, seeds, the random yellow jacket, etc. that have settled to the bottom of the vat. Once the majority of the wine has been transferred to another empty vat, there is a pretty good layer of purplish-pink sludge at the bottom, these are the lees. Here in France, as a way to control alcohol production and to levee yet another tax on wineries, you are required to keep these lees and then take them to the distillery where they will be distilled into industrial alcohol. So I sloshed the lees out of the vats and transferred them into a big blue plastic barrel where they are now waiting to be taken to the distillery. Now the wine is ready to sleep for the winter, it will stay there until spring time when the temperatures warm up and then, hopefully the malolactic fermentation will finish all by itself after which we'll be ready to blend! Lots to look forward to.....