la gramiere

C'est finit!

Unbelievable! All 8500 liters of our wine is now in bottle.  That makes 11,400 bottles and it all fits, miraculously in our garage! 

Yesterday we actually got started right at 7:30 and had enough people so that it seemed to go much more smoothly than the previous day.  You see, the bottler shows up with his truck, the machines, etc. but we have to provide all of the labor.  Since our situation is less than ideal, meaning that we don't have a proper winery, and the layout isn't at all what it should be, it makes for a lot more work.   Yesterday we had 11 people, at times 12, so it was a piece of cake. (ha ha ha) We finished in 3 hours!

As I said we have converted part of our house into the store area for the wine. The cellar floor hasn't been cemented (due to lack of money in the budget!) so it's river rock, meaning that you can't drive a fork lift in there, meaning that we had to stack
2000 6-bottle cases by hand onto the pallets.  I say "we" but it was mostly Matt and the other strong guys we managed to round up.

That's one of the biggest challenges, doing this on a shoe-string budget, makes it that you sometimes have double, even triple the work.  We got some good ideas though, of how to make it work more smoothly next year.  And for now we're just savouring the moment with great satisfaction, knowing that vintage number one is now safely in bottle, and just waiting to be tasted by all of you! 

WOW!

Imagine, coming in after a long morning bottling to find, to my utter delight, that two other bloggers had written about me on their widely read websites! 

Check out both, they are two of my favorite bloggers, and they have honored me by writing about me on their blogs!

Wine Camp by Craig Camp

Fermentation by Tom Wark

Thanks you guys! I still have a smile on my face just thinking about it! :-)

Fatigue

There's a point where fatigue sets in, and all you can think about is crawling into bed, and I'm pretty much there right now.  We had a pretty good morning of bottling, after several starts and stops, little adjustments, etc. we finally got rolling.  Luckily there was a bit of a cloud cover so we weren't frying until about 10:30.  The temps here in southern France are flirting with 100 degrees, so at 11:30 when we finished the first vat, we decided to break for lunch, and call it a day.  No reason to risk damaging the wine when we still have the bottler booked for tomorrow and we can start much earlier since everything is all set up and ready to go. 

One of the things I often marvel at is the generous attitudes of our friends and family.  So many people came out to help, and stayed the whole morning, and even volunteered to come back tomorrow, amazing.  We counted, and really to run smoothly, we need 10 people to man the bottling line, stack the cases into the truck, drive them around to the front of the house, unload them and stack them on pallets.  Amazingly enough, we came up with those 10 people, even in the middle of summer when everyone here is on vacation.  Not to mention, Bri and Jenn who drove down from Switzerland just to come help us, and it was Jenn's 40th birthday today! How lucky were we?!

So, many many many thanks to all of our dear dear friends who came out today! Including; Viviane, Jean-Marc, Sylvain, Jean-Paul, Alison, Nick, Denis, Beatrice, another Denis, Bri and Jenn, and to all the others who are coming tomorrow morning to finish the job!

Bottles

Never thought I'd be so glad to see 11,500 bottles behind my house.  They were supposed to be delivered yesterday, but the salesperson called and said there was a problem with the truck and that they weren't going to make it.  I swear I am cursed when it comes to bottles.  Her solution was to deliver the same color bottles, but a lower quality instead this morning.  No, thank you.  I hate it when I drink a bottle of wine and the glass is really thin, looks like the winery was cutting corners, and for me it's important that our wine is well presented.  So, I said what about another color, the one called  "feuille morte" of dead leaf.  It's the classic greenish-brown bottle that you see for many wines.  I had wanted the color they call antique, which is a richer brown, but was willing to go with the green if we could have a higher quality, thicker bottle.  In the end you really can't tell the difference in color when the bottle is full, only once it's been opened. Luckily, they had enough to deliver to us, and they did so at 7:45 this morning.  Yippee!  Now everything is set for tomorrow.  The man who does the bottling is arriving this afternoon to set everything up so that we can get an early start tomorrow morning.  It is very hot here so we want to take advantage of the lower temps and get everything done we can as early as we can.  We've got tarps to hang over the street so that we can keep it as cool as possible back there, and our neighbors across the street went on vacation, so we have full access to their pool in order to cool off. Thank goodness.  I'll let you know how it goes..... if I'm still in one piece.

The countdown begins...

Next Wednesday, less than one week from today, we will be bottling our red.  Everything is pretty much ready. We have everything except for the bottles and they will arrive Monday.  I spoke with the man on the phone and he had already been informed by the salesperson that I was very nervous about the bottles arriving. Hopefully, everything will go as planned this time.

Last weekend we had Matt's brother, Brian, his wife, Jenn, and their two girls here, so we took advantage of the extra hands to move the boxes and dividers from the garage into the upper part of the winery so that we could finish cleaning out the garage. Sure is nice to have help!  Makes people think twice about coming to visit us though as there's always a project to be done. Having visitors seems to motivate us to get those projects done!  Hmm, wonder why!?  We filled up our friend Peter's pick-up truck twice with junk to go to the dump.  You see, we inherited a lot of stuff when we bought this house. Some of it is wonderful bits of the history of our house, some of it is just plain junk.  I really hate to throw things away, especially old things.  I drew the line though, at a jar of mushrooms that had been preserved back in 1956, even though it was a very nice, old canning jar. There was no way I was going to open it!

Anyway, once again, we were saved by members of our family.  It's really amazing, no matter how far they have to come, it's like magic they just appear and help out!  We really are so very lucky!

Jenn and I racked the wine one last time before bottling in order to reduce the amount of CO2.  This occurs naturally after fermentation, and you really don't want to have too much when you bottle, otherwise your wine will have a slight sparkle to it.  Now, it's just waiting until next Wednesday when it will be bottled!  I can't wait.  In the meantime, I pulled a sample this afternoon to taste it.  Mmmm, it's pretty darn good. I think you'll like it! 

Going Fast!

The rosé is selling fast.  Granted, with only 700 bottles, it won't take much to sell out, but none-the-less, it's on its way.  Last week, Terroirs took another 120 bottles and when we had dinner there on Saturday night, Tom told us that he was almost half-way through it!  Geez, we may have to tell him to slow down a bit. It would be nice if it lasted through August.  Friends are stopping by to pick up a case here and there, so we have sold at least half of it already.  Not bad for a first try!

On Saturday night as we sat at Terroirs with Matt's brother Brian and his wife Jenn, we kept saying, "Ooh look, they're drinking it! Oh, and over there too!"  It was pretty funny, kind of like watching your kids at the school play, glowing with pride as they come out on stage..." Finally, I got my courage up to take a picture of Tom (the owner) pouring our wine at a table right behind us.  The customers were a couple from England who have a house in the region. We asked if they minded, and they graciously accepted to be photographed for the blog!  Also, here's a picture of the wine list, if you squint hard enough, you'll see us listed in the section under rosés!  Pretty exciting!

BUGS

Right now, in the vineyards, you gotta love the bugs. They're everywhere, cicadas, grasshoppers, spiders of all shapes and colors... The cicada, along with the bee, is one of the symbols of Provence. You'll find them embroidered on table cloths and napkins and in almost any form of cheesy tourist junk you can imagine.  In the vineyards though, they are amazing.  The Cigales (cicadas) start singing their song about 10 in the morning.  In some places it's almost deafening. Well not really, but the buzz is amazing.  It's super hot and dry here,  just the right weather for them.  As you walk through the vineyards and brush up against the vines, suddenly you'll hear a squawk, which normally scares the tail off of me, and a cigale will go flying away... Take a closer look, they really are very beautiful bugs.

On Thursday when we were out spraying sulfur on the vines to prevent powdery mildew (oidium), I looked over and Matt was covered with them (click on the picture you can see them on his shirt!)! He calls them his friends.  They are quite cute.  When it was my turn on the tractor, I had one on my shirt for a good hour.  They just like hanging out.  Then there was one on my La Gramière hat. Pretty great picture, huh?  Couldn't have staged that one if we tried!

Version Française

FYI- For my French friends and readers, I have started a French Version of my blog. You will find the link on the left of this page. I hope you are patient because, I barely have time to write this blog. How I'm going to succeed in writing this in French, I'm not sure.  I am going to do my best.  Afterall, I do live in France and I do speak fluent French. It's a very tough language to write though!  We'll see what they have to say!

Pour mes amis francophones, j'ai commencé une nouvelle page en "version française".  Merci de me corriger quand il le faut! 

Escape to London!

Well, Egham really.  To any Brits reading this, I'm sure they would not consider Egham being London, but to me it's all the same... My sister, Molly, and her boyfriend just bought a house together in Egham and they moved in last week.  I flew up on Friday to help out a bit.  Egham is a nice place to live. There are some great café-restaurants, a bit of shopping, and only 40 minutes to London.  Since only the super-rich can afford London, it's a nice compromise. 

It was quite hot in London last weekend, not really what I expected since we always think of rain! We took a break from unpacking Saturday morning and went to the Bourough Market, in the city.  Apparently, it is now on the "must do" list when visiting London.  I had been there a couple of years ago after reading an article about it in Saveur magazine. Boy, has it grown since.  What an amazing place to visit.  Fruit and vegetable stalls, wine shops, a shop specializing in all things from Spain, lots of local poultry, lamb, beef etc.  It's great fun.  Oh, and did I mention all of the yummy baked goods, grilled meats, and fresh fruit drinks to sample on your way around.  If you go, definitely go with an empty stomach.  There's lots of great places to eat scattered around, not to mention, the great British Cheese Shop "Neal's Yard Dairy" has opened a store just across the street. The market is only open Friday from noon to 6:00pm and Saturdays from 9:00-4:00. Plan your day accordingly.