9/11/12

For some reason I woke up this morning at 430 am. I’ve been doing that a lot lately and I am not happy about it. It doesn’t make sense because I feel like I am already adjusted to the time difference, and I get tired at the appropriate time, but I still end up ruining a perfect nights sleep by waking up early. I usually toss and turn for a half hour or so before actually getting back to sleep. On this particular morning however, I couldn’t help but think of the date, and its importance to my home country. I sat in bed and said a little prayer for everyone we’ve lost, our fallen soldiers, and those who continue to fight for the country I live in (shout out Bobby Geiger and Nick Firestone). I got back to bed and woke up to a somewhat gloomy Tuesday. Not rainy, but gloomy. It has been overcast for the last couple of days, just in the morning, but very very humid. I did not really expect this kind of weather. Today in the vineyard was sample day. We got to the farm shop and broke off into groups of two or three to roam the parcels under the Yves Cuilleron label, collect universal sample bags of grapes from each parcel, and bring them back to the lab for assessment. I was assigned with Baptiste, the Water Joust champion of France.

Side Note: Water jousting is a sport practiced principally in France and also Switzerland and Germany. It is a form of jousting where the adversaries carrying a lance and protected only by a shield stand on a platform on the stern of a boat. The boat is propelled by oarsmen, or in some cases, a motor may be used. The aim of the sport is to send the adversary into the water whilst maintaining one's own balance on the platform. The jousters stand on a wooden platform on their boats. As the two competing boats draw level with each other, each jouster, protected by their shield, uses their lance to push his opponent off the platform and into the water. The exact rules of the contest vary from region to region and country to country.

He speaks very little English! It was a little hard to communicate so we weren’t exactly chatting up a storm the whole time. Anyways, we went out and collected the samples from about 15 different parcels (locations/plots etc.).

Yves apparently has over 100, maybe 115, different parcels, so there was a lot of work to do! Basically protocol is to bring the sample back, crush up the grapes (which are around 200 single grapes from various parts of the vineyard) inside the bag until it is juicy, strain it, and then use that juice to take the sugar content, the Total Acidity (TA) and the pH. We broke for lunch then went back out into the vineyard. It started to rain right as we left but I didn’t bring any cover because I figured since it was so humid I would be fine. Nope!

Just as we got to the farm everyone brought out their rain parkas as it began to DOWNPOUR. I was in shorts and a t-shirt! Psfnjnsd! We got out to this sweet vineyard site and waited in the van for about 10 minutes while it rained hard. Then it mellowed out for a sec and we got out to pull leaves on both sides of the canopy to make it easier to harvest the grapes when the time comes.

 All of a sudden the rain stopped, we saw the sun, and it got super humid and warm. We took a break after a while and drank some water. Then back to work. All of a sudden then it started to downpour again! Now the French will work in some rainy weather, but if the rain becomes too consistent, nuh uh, it is time to go back to the winery. So at about 4 pm, we headed back, and it continued to rain. So basically with nothing to do, we called it a day. They set up this sweet kegerator downstairs from my room in the eating hall. It is supposed to be for harvest time. We broke the seal and had some beers after a long hard day!

9/12/12

We were supposed to harvest today, but I awoke to this:

It was the darkest day I had seen yet. This time I was prepared. I put on my pants, redback waterproof shoes (since my other were still soaking from the day before), and my Carhartt rainproof parka. We got to the farm shop and it was said that we would not harvest this morning due to rain, so we headed out to the vineyard. We first went to this Vin de Pays (which is basically flat ground grapes that are of lower quality and not part of an appellation) where we again pulled leaves on either side of the canopy. After finishing there we went to this other vineyard, high in the hills of the Saint Joseph appellation.

It was raining a little but not enough to stop us from working. The area is called La Grande Gorge, and the vineyard sight “La Modan” (not spelled correctly) for “The Modanna” because of this statue looking over the town.

We again performed the tedious task of leaf pulling until it began to rain very consistently. 

“Time to go back to the winery,” I heard through my ipod earphones. 11 am. We went back to the farm shop and then the winery and decided to take it easy for the time being. Lunch was to be served at noon anyways. Apparently, a brunch and a lunch should be catered to all of the interns throughout harvest. I did computer work for an hour and went down to the eating hall for lunch at noon. Beers were being poured from our keg, wine was opened, and we began to drink. Aperitif time I guess. We drank for about a half hour, and lunch was finally served. I was starving. The Kiwi and I sat across from each other. They served us cold scalloped potatoes with ham mixed in and huge baguettes of bread were placed on the table. It was a somewhat small portion and I scarfed it down along with two pieces of bread. I couldn’t help but think, “no wonder why the French smoke so many cigs, they eat nothing!” I thought all hope was lost when, boom! Second course was served. Some sort of meat, I think pork, with peas. I ate a lot. We then had flan for dessert. I thought flan was a Mexican dessert, but apparently not. Guess you learn something new everyday.

We basically spent the rest of the afternoon doing the same monotonous task as before, except for this time I was listening to my French tapes the whole to get extra practice in speaking this difficult, confusing language. Its not all fun and games. I got back to the house after work and went on a run around the town. Gotta make sure the French continue to know what American muscle looks like! Haha! That’s all for now. We are supposed to pick tomorrow, so hopefully it doesn’t rain. Pray for sun!