Sometimes the decision is made for you

Yesterday morning I went down to the vineyards to sample the grapes.  I filled a large ziploc bag with  grapes randomly selected throughout our 3 largest vineyards (the mourvèdre definitely needing more time).  As I was walking through my favorite vineyard which we call Lauzettes, I was horrified to see that the boars had quickly moved from our Roussanne vineyard which is just across the way, to this vineyard.  They had decimated it!  There was such beautiful fruit, and I was hard pressed to find one vine that hadn't been in some way touched by them!  Ugh.  Not wanting to lose any more fruit, we decided we'd better start picking today.  The sugars are plenty high and it's essentially ready, we were just waiting to see if the flavors would develop further.  Well, if there aren't any grapes left, then perfect ripeness doesn't really matter, does it?

So we're officially picking.  We started off with a small group today, due to late notice, and the lateness of the harvest this year, lots of our die-hard harvest groupies like my sister Molly and Matt's brother Brian, couldn't be here.  We had friends come the first week of September hoping to take part since in years past we were harvesting at that point, but this year it was not to be.  So we had a small crew out there today, and I was worried, but it was actually really pleasant.  We were all relaxed, there weren't a lot of grapes, and it was a beautiful day.   We finished picking the 1 hectare vineyard at about 5pm, and then we came back here to process the grapes and put them in the tank.  After cleaning up the mess, rinsing out the cases and the buckets and getting everything ready for tomorrow, it's only 10pm.  I call that a very civilized first day of harvest!  We'll see how the rest of it goes...

Comments

[Iris]

Hervé wrote today about his experience with wild boars, you know, that it's a recurrent problem in our place - I feel with you (our electrical fences are holding boars out for the moment, but badgers - nearly as efficient, still get in somehow...) - even when there isn't hail, there is definitely still something else to threaten a winemakers happiness....

[Cathy Connors]

Amy,

What horrible luck! Hopefully the remaining grapes you were able to harvest will make your best ever wine thus far!