9/26-10/7

Wow a lot has happened since my last post, hence the time it has taken me to detail the last couple weeks. Harvest and work in the winery has gotten even busier. We have been getting so much fruit in that I have almost lost track of all the different locations. Every morning these days we all get up and start with remontages (pump overs) immediately. There are a bunch of tanks in the bottom section of the winery as well as the top sections so it takes about 4 hours or so to complete all of them!

After that is finished we normally have lunch, chill out for a bit, and hit it hard in the afternoon, processing tons of red fruit and filling the press. A lot of the red fruit we harvested weeks ago has finished fermentation, so we have been doing at least two decuvages (basically digging out red grape must from the tank) a day. It is a lot of work. Here is a picture of me in one of the tanks getting at it:

My hands are in red juice so often that they have become permanently stained (a very normal occurrence during harvest time). This is a picture of one of my hands post-shower and aggressive hand washing.

On a non-winemaking note, all the guys, and some of the girls, have been getting together about once a week after work for poker night. I’m generally not a fan of gambling, just because I am not that good and I prefer to spend big bucks on physical items that I enjoy, but because of the bonding experience that goes along with the game, I have been partaking every time. The first night we played there were about 20 something of us, including the big boss Yves. I basically played it safe for an hour and a half or so, didn’t win a single hand, but had a great time with the wine and beer we consumed. The next week we played it was a smaller crew, about twelve of us. I was a bit more adjusted to Texas hold’em this time so I took some more risks. Over the course of the night it seemed as if I was once again going to lose it all. But then, by the grace of the almighty, I won a hand, a big hand, and was back in the game. Next thing you know people are dropping out left and right, and by about 1 am, it was just Mickey (a member of the vineyard crew, and quite a rough boy I may add), the Kiwi, and myself. We played until about 1 45 am and I came out on top. Mickey and I went all in at one point and I schooled his ass with a straight. And boom goes the dynamite! I came out with 80 euro in my pocket and handful of pride.

The next time we played I ended up buying in twice, losing 20 euro and going to bed by 11 pm, but why go into details when all I did was lose, its not important.

The weekend of the 28^th, 29^th, and 30^th we visited Vienne, a medium sized town about a half hour north of the winery, as well as Lyon, a very large city about an hour north of the winery. Because we worked all day these were only late-night trips unfortunately but they were still fun as I have been itching to see a large mass of people. Basically one of the French guys here took us out in Vienne one night and then another French girl intern took us out the other night in Lyon. It was pretty cool.

On that Sunday, the 30^th, we finished work around lunch-time, and Adam, the Kiwi, and myself went to a restaurant, on Yves tab I might add, for a nice Sunday lunch. I ordered the sampler beef tartar plate. It was killer.

On a little side note, when we go to restaurants here and you order like a steak for instance, you have the choice of how you want it cooked like in the states. Except for here “rare” is referred to as “bleu”

The next step is “signon” or something like that, which is basically seared on both sides, and then “medium” which would be like a medium rare to rare in the states. They seldom over cook meat.

On Sunday the 30^th we got the opportunity to go to a futbol match!! It was super rad. Yves has a VIP box at the stadium where we got served champagne, wine, beer, tons of appetizers, and little sweets. The game was not eventful from a scoring perspective (0-0), but it was a super fun time just to be there. 

This weekend (5^th and 6^th) we also had a great time. On Friday night Adam, the Kiwi and I went into Chavanay with Baptiste, the Joust champion of France, to go to a bar and watch the futbol match on tv. We walked into the bar and met his dad, and his two brothers. We immediately started drinking beers, and then his dad ordered us a giraffe, which is a large tube of beer standing straight up with a tap at the end. It has about 6 pints in it. Next thing you know we are odering giraffes like candy, playing foose ball, darts, and getting rowdy. All of a sudden Baptistes mom and her womens group came in all dressed in these weird outfits. They had been drinking a lot as well, and they were chanting and singling so loud I could barely talk to anyone. It was a great time. We stayed there for a while, drank more beer than I could count, and ended up getting home about 3 am. Needless to say the next morning was the worst I have had so far in France. I couldn’t even have a glass of white wine at our mid-morning break. Fortunately everyone was hung over so I wasn’t the odd man out.