Lending a hand

Since we have a small operation and our harvest tends to be a bit earlier than some of our friends, they often come to help us pick and then I often spend a few days helping everyone pick too!  Last week, I was all over the place picking grapes, as if I hadn't had enough of that already!

On Monday I helped our good friend Denis Gayte pick a small parcel of old vines cinsault that is part of his vineyards that he takes to the local coop.  Most of these vineyards are now picked by machine, but the goblet shape of the old vines doesn't allow the machines to pass without doing some serious damage to the plants.  The weather here has been glorious, and it was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Thursday was Even's day.  So I got up at o'dark thirty to drive the hour and a half to the foot of Mont Ventoux to help out at my friend Even Bakke's new project called Clos de Trias. Even and his wife Marie-Caroline bought a property just before harvest last year, it's quite a bit bigger than ours so I wanted to see how it all worked.  Even worked in the California wine industry for over ten years with some of the top wineries and he has invested in some amazing equipment to make top-notch wine in the Ventoux, so it's very exciting to see how the pros do it.  He has been a great help to us, offering us knowledge and advice, and is an invaluable ressource for my under-educated enological mind!  As you may remember Even was generous enough to loan us his destemmer and must pump, so that we could see the benefits of this fancy equipment, even if we can't afford it quite yet!  This year he has added a sorting table that is making the sorting process go much more smoothly.  I'll post a video of it next!  Mrs.  Bakke (Even's mom) is a former restaurant owner and caterer, so they are lucky enought to have her come for the entire harvest and cook for them.  We had a great lunch under the mulberry tree looking out over the syrah vineyard that we had picked that morning.

Finally, yesterday  Matt and I spent the day helping our friend Serge Scherrer pick his .80 hectares of grenache and cinsault (that's about 2 acres we have 5 times as much - and we think we're small!)  Just last year Serge bought this vineyard, and like us, spends all of his free time and weekends tending his vineyards and making wine.  Last year he made about 1500 bottles, this year he's hoping there will be  a bit more!  The weather was perfect, even a little hot at lunch time!  Here's a shot of how Serge and Matt did the sorting of the grapes!  Not quite as technically advanced as Even, but a good way to do it if you only have one tiny vineyard!  It's been a fun week, harvesting at 3 very different places, all for friends and all in the spirit of helping each other out and trying to return the many favors that they have all done for us!