10/8-10/19/12

Wah wah wee wah the time is flying by! Since my last post we have been doing nothing but remontages, decuvages, and barreling down all day every day. For some reason I have been super tired though, even more so than during the actual harvest. I am enjoying this time a lot however because it is usually just a core group of us running the show in the winery, without the distraction of other harvest workers, so it feels good to be making decisions on my own. I am not sure how many decuvages (tank dig outs) we have left, but it seems like things are moving very quickly and I am not quite sure what is going to happen after we finish that up.

Last Friday night (one week ago), we had had our “Revol” party. It is basically a celebration of the end of the harvest. And celebrate we did. That Friday we got off work about 11:30 am and met basically the entire harvest crew (about 40 people or so) at this restaurant up the street. We sat outside for probably an hour and a half or so and drank Condrieu while the waitresses brought out a massive spread of appitizers. Rough life. While I trying not to eat too much before my actual meal I checked out these black and white photos of the harvest some guy took while we worked. Here is one of the shots from the winery:

After getting a primary buzz and listening to a short thank you speech from Yves, we all made our way inside to order. For my first course I got some smoked salmon pate dish with a little side salad that was to die for. The other option was foie gras, which I like, but is sometimes too rich for my blood in large quantity. We ate the meal, drank some Saint-Peray, Condrieu, and Saint-Joseph blanc, and loved life. We sat outside for a bit in between courses and I chatted with a bunch of the harvest workers. One of them in particular, a man by the name of Roberto, particularly interested me. I had spoken with him before, but always made for a good time. This man basically wears the skin of a 71 year-old, and has the heart of a man in his early thirties. He is polite and gentlemanly at the appropriate times, and then next thing you know is he flirting with the 20 something winery harvest interns, in a totally honest and respectable way of course. He apparently fought in the Algerian War, which is a pretty rough subject.

Anyways, the next course for me was a chicken dish with three kinds of mushrooms, veggies, and some potatoes. Delicious! We drank some red wine, got dessert, and drank a coffee to quickly recharge the batteries. I had a second espresso to make sure the energy level was at a high. We finally left the restaurant after about a 5 hour lunch, and cruised over to this guys house to drink and socialize. This guy was one of the seasonal harvesters. We arrived there and started drinking this green liquor which I forget the name of but is very very strong. He had these hand drums out and all of us (and by all of us I mean basically me and like 4 other guys) started playing the drums and messing around. It was a blast, especially because by this time we were really getting buzzed.

We stayed here for an hour or so and then took off and went to another guys house. Now this part of the story became a bit of a blur, but we definitely drank more. Later in the night I found myself with a bottle of Chartruesse outside, and next thing you know we were pouring shots into each other’s mouths.

By this time it was aabout 10 pm. We all sort of split up from that guys house, and I went with a crew to Romain’s (a guy we work with) house. Side note: Romain has been growing his dreads out since he was 15 yrs old. He is now 30.

We stayed there for a while and of course drank more. Tom, the Kiwi, didn’t do so well (I wont go into detail), so the girls took him home. I didn’t go. Big mistake. I later realized how tough for them it must have been getting a drunk 100 kilo guy up two flights of stairs and into is bed in the winery. Hahahahahaha. We stayed at his house for a while, and then I ran to the bar in Chavanay. And by ran I mean actually ran. Not sure how I did it but I just remember having a lot of energy at the time. I stayed there until sometime in the early morning and then got a ride home with one of the guys from work. He was sober for sure.

Sometime before the Revol party we went to this guys house that makes some wine at the cellar for a “blind tasting.” Normally I would not take the time to go into detail about this adventure, but this turned out to be an extraordinary situation, even apart from the wine. We arrived at his place in downtown Chavanay. It was a just a door amongst a collection of buildings. We walked into what seemed to be a parts shop, and he took our bottles that we brought to his upstairs flat. We didn’t go up to his flat, but further into the shop. I was very skeptical of the situation given the uninviting ambiance of the place. All of a sudden we took a sharp left turn and went down a flight of white stone steps into….the cave of dreams.

This cave was right under his flat and you would have no idea that it was there. The flooring was chipped white gravel with an oak bar on the right with running water. A small table was in the middle of room with seating on each side, on each side, basically lining the cave, was wine. The wines were all in crates, separated into specific regions spanning the country of France, as well as some other regions of the world. It was awesome. He also had about seven fermenting and ageing barrels filled with wine along one of the walls. It has inspired me to build a cave of my own someday. It may be a pipe dream now, but one day I will make it a reality, mark my words!

Here is a picture of Adam I took sitting alone by the table

We also had one of the most extensive blind tastings I have ever been involved in. It was a group of about 15, and throughout the night I think we opened 33 bottles, about half and half red and white from all over France. What an experience.

10/20-10/30/12

Since this last section we finished remontages as well as all fermentations, so basically all that was left was to clean the winery and fill barrels with wine.

We have also been getting a bunch of late harvest (vendage tardif) fruit into the winery. Viognier, Marsanne, Rousanne, and Syrah from all different appellations.

During one day in Saint Joseph, we went to pick some Syrah on a very tropical, humid day.

Pipette, the vineyard manager, showed us one row he said was struck by lightning! The whole row seemed to be electrocuted and turned all the leaves red!

There were quite a bit of mushrooms growing in one section, so one of the guys told us which ones we could eat raw, and which ones were dangerous…quite a “colorful” day it was…..

JUST KIDDING

Later in the week I helped out one day bottling. It was very different than at home. They have their own bottling line here, but all that it consists of is a empty bottle track that runs into the filling line, then corking line, and after the bottles are stacked together in these large steel cages. They are not labeled until about a week before they are released/shipped so that the labels don’t gather dust and get dirty. I think that day we bottled about 14,000 bottles, which equates to about 1,166 cases or so…about a quarter of what Carhartt Vineyard produces annually! Needless to say it was a long day for the three of us.

After work that day, Justin, one of the guys I work with told me he brought his boxing gloves for a little training session in French boxing. Just to give you a little history, when I originally found out through casual conversation that Justin was an amateur French boxer, I got super excited and told him that when he had time I would love to train with him. So I guess this was my chance haha! We went across the street and got suited up. Adam and Tom also came to get in on the action. Now in French boxing, you can utilize a variety of punches and movements like in American boxing, but you can also use your legs to perform a variety of kicks. The idea is to make contact with the opponent, gaining points, while trying to not commit faults or being hit. One example of a fault would to kick your opponent, but to accidentally connect with your shin from being too close. Sometimes two opponents kick at the same time and smash shin to shin, so for the reason Justin had each of us wear shin pads. We all got trained and then sparred with each other for a couple hours. Now I have been running off and on to stay in shape, but this was far and away a more difficult workout.

This most recent weekend (26^th-28^th) we got a half day on Friday and the whole weekend off! Finally. So Adam, Tom and I headed to Lyon to stay at one of the girls’ we work with house and go out for a couple nights on the town. And go out we did. That Friday night went to an electronic concert on a boat floating on the Rhone river. Before leaving the house, tom and I decided that, although it was getting very cold outside, and was supposed to rain later that evening/the following morning, we would not bring jackets, given that the concert was inside and bringing a jacket would only cause extra problems. So we rolled out in jeans and a t-shirt. The crisp air felt refreshing on my body, but I must say I was happy when we finally arrived at the boat. We boarded and had a blast. We emerged from the ship at about 4 am. It was raining and very windy. No jacket, bad decision. I was under the impression in the beginning of the night that we would be able to get a taxi back to Louise’s (the girl) house no problem from the ship. No true! From what I gathered all of the taxi drivers were not working or on strike because nothing turned up during the hour we tried calling. So Louise did the only thing she could, phone a friend. Luckily one of her buddies was up and about at his apartment across the river in town. Only problem, we had to get there. So we trekked it in the pouring rain and howling wind at 5 am, and all I had was a lousy t-shirt. We made it, wet and tired. We stayed there for about 45 minutes until we caught the morning bus back to her house. I was in bed by about 615 am, safe and sound.

The next morning, we woke up to the afternoon. It was a marvelous sleep-in. We chilled at the house for a bit and then went into town around 4 pm or so. I immediately went to the Carhartt Euro Store in the center of Lyon. I had been waiting all my life to visit this place. I spent almost two hours in the store and walked out a happy man. And by happy man I mean I spent about a half months pay on designer European Carhartt get-up...oops!

Tom and I then went to a wine shope he had been to before (Antic Wine/George Five), got a couple bottles of Burgundy for that night, and tasted a couple wines at the bar. That night we went to a friend of Louise’s house, Malik. Malik is 21 yrs old, and basically a sommolier, or so he studies in school. He was/is a super cool guy and very entertaining. We opened up quite a few bottles, a lot of which was Burgundy. We finished it off late light with a little Laphroaig whiskey…nothin’ like a little night cap!

The next day we cruised to this inependant winemakers festival in Lyon. Basically it was a massive collection of independent (small) winemakers from every region of France. It was great. We tasted everything from Alsace Reisling to Grande Champagne, from Bordeaux to Cognac. We spent almost 4 hours at the festival with Malik which was way cool because he knew a lot of information about the regions and wineries from his studies.

We then eventually got a train home and the weekend was over.

These past three days, (29^th, 30, 31^st) have been very interesting. The weekend we were gone, it snowed on the hills just above the winery! (about 1200 ft), so these last three days have been coooollllldd. This Monday we went back out into the vineyard and began to pre-prune some of the vines. Basically that means just cutting the massive canes down about half way so that when they do go back to prune it will be easier. We also have been harvesting more and more late harvest, mostly Syrah! It is looking good. This is a picture from Cote-Rotie

Some of these grapes are reaching degree brix of almost 50. Its incredible.

On Tuesday we got the word that we would be going out into the vineyard and tearing some sections apart. Basically Yves has Saint-Joseph Syrah which is on the dividing line between the Saint Joseph AOC and the Condrieu AOC. Because it is Syrah however, it is considered Saint Joseph. Condrieu is considered upper echelon though and can sell for a higher rate, so he got the word that if he tore out some vines and replanted with Viognier, it could be labeled as Condrieu. So that’s what he did. According to Pipette, these vines were planted in the sixties, so just over 50 yrs old! So amazing to be part of the destruction process.

Yesterday (Wednesday/Halloween) we went back to the same plot and collected all of the canes we placed in bunches and burned them in the vineyard. Everyone around us was doing it too! While that was happening we also took out the trellising and burned some of the old wood. Tom brought some oxtail to the vineyard after lunch and we cooked it over the burning of the vineyard wood. It was to die for.

These next four days we get off as a holiday because Nov 1^st is considered basically “day of the dead” where everyone remembers their ancestors. We also get this Friday off and the whole weekend so Adam, Tom, and I are going south to adventure! Bon Voyage!