Pallets!

Ever thought much about them?  Me neither until we started shipping wine to the US.  We are required to ship each order on pallets that are specially treated according to a norm called NIMP15.  What? Yeah, that's what I said when I got the fax from the Kermit Lynch office.  Seems that it stems from an international treaty that was signed by most countries concerning untreated wood products.  Apparently some untreated wood products can harbor little bugs and beetles that are harmful to other species of plants in other countries.  There are two ways to get rid of these bugs, one by heating the wood to a high enough temperature to kill off any little critters that may be living inside the wood or the second using methyl bromide.  Kermit Lynch refuses to accept pallets treated with methyl bromide (good thing! I'm not sure exactly what methyl bromide is but it sounds nasty!) so we obviously use first kind.

So last year when we started shipping our wine,  we get this fax, and I think: geez, here's another thing I have to learn about, where the heck to I find these pallets?  Of course I had a stack of normal ones left over from the bottle delivery, but no, can't use those, must buy different ones!  So I asked our friends Bertrand and Claudie Cortellini at Rouge Garance, and they told me where to go. 

So that's how I spent my morning today, driving 45 minutes to a place up in the Cevennes mountains that makes pallets!  It's funny how you discover a whole new industry by accident, just because you make wine.  I have to borrow our friend Peter's pick-up truck every time,  because they won't fit into my super cool '78 Renault 4L.  Good thing we have a friend with a pick-up since they won't deliver unless you order at least 100!  Not sure we'll ever  need that many...

Comments

[Tim Stephens]

Oh, yes! ...(flashback)... I actually had a '73 Simca (that's French too, right?) as my first car when I was 16. Couldn't get it to go more than 60 miles an hour and it probably kept me out of a lot of trouble. :-) Took all the money I had to keep it running -- parts were hard to come by and terribly expensive, even then, here in the States. But I remember it fondly.....