A first and hopefully not the last!

Saturday 5 October is well and truly noted in the Shearing household. Our first vendange. It was set up by friends of ours in Bournand who have been helping a particular wine producer with the vendange every year for some time. We felt really honoured to be allowed in. Vendange teams are made up of very close friends and family and it's difficult to get into one. Up until now having asked locally a few times, we've not been able to do it. But yesterday that all changed. What we'd been told was that it would be hard work and a lot of fun. Sounded pretty good.

We got to Bournand for 8am. It's a hamlet about thirty minutes from us. Met up with our friends and then walked to the wine producer's house which was five minutes away down the lane. We were introduced to the family and then to all the other helpers. This was not a big commercial harvest as found in Cravant, but rather a vendange familiale. It's a known expression for something on a smaller scale. Four generations have owned and run the family business. Grandfather died last year. Grandma is still around and amazingly sprightly for an over ninety year old. The head of the family is her son Gérard and wife Janette, their son Pascal and daughter in law Mireille. Absolutely lovely people. We were given such a warm welcome.

So to work. We jumped on some trailers and were towed along by tractor to the vines. By now it was 8.30am. All hand picking. There is a technique to it. Working in pairs on either side of the vines, you have to ferret around in the foliage. Vines are very leafy and compact. Some grapes grow upwards, other manage to grow round the wire supports, others hang naturally. The vines were relatively low, so you're permanently bent down, clipping away. You are given a bucket to put the grapes in and secateurs, also gloves to stop your hands getting stained. Eventually you get into a rhythm and can pick up some speed. 

We'd just got started when a hot air balloon floated by. Everyone stopped and looked, including the cows in the nearby field. It was flying quite low and for a moment we thought it was going to land. Probably came down to have a look at what we and the other gangs working nearby were doing. We were surrounded by vines, sunflowers - which were waiting to be harvested and maize. But these crops are going to be done in two weeks time. The weather forecast for the coming week was very good, so promised some additional drying-out time. Recent rainfall meant everything was just too damp.


We worked for about three hours and then around 11am we stopped for a break.Supplies had been brought out on the tractors, so a choice of rosé and/or coffee, with biscuits. The boys had both. I had a sip of Mike's wine, which was lovely - off dry - but stuck to the coffee - from huge flasks. Just hit the spot. Didn't have too much as we were quite a way from anywhere and there wasn't an obvious place to go for a wee. So buckets down and gloves off for about ten minutes.

Gérard with his 'hotte'

The weather was a perfect mix of slightly overcast followed by a bit of sun. Everyone was wearing layers. By mid morning, my anorak was off along with layer number one. Did about another hour and a half. We'd made very good time and got the first parcelle of grapes completed quickly. Sometimes there was total silence, but every now and again, there'd be a burst of conversation, laughter and the occasional song. Having got everything finished for the morning, we packed up - people, grapes and equipment - and headed back to the house for lunch. I'd been trying to take photos and did get some, but it wasn't easy with sticky, grape stained rubber gloves on. However, the process of the morning was simple and went very well. Most of us were picking. Two men were carrying the hotte, which is a metal panier with straps worn on the back ( photo above). They'd walk up and down the rows and as we filled up our buckets we would empty them into the hotte as it went by. 

Pascal and the fouloir

When the hottes were full the men went back to the trailer with the grape crusher/fouloir and emptied the grapes, which wasn't easy to do - climbing up a ladder, getting your balance right, then angling yourself over the fouloir so that the grapes, with a bit of help could fall in. There was another newbie along with Mike and I. Our fellow newbie (in the photo) and I, had to meet the challenge of carrying a hotte and emptying it. Mireille was busy taking photos, so somewhere there is one of me doing the same thing. Both of us girls were of similar diminutive stature, so just getting up the ladder and on to the trailer was slightly tricky. This was the first, we discovered, of several traditional challenges for new members of the crew. Everyone else there had done the same thing. Our friends had been sworn to secrecy, so we had no idea what was coming.

Lunch in the garage

Lunch was back at Gérard and Janette's house in the garage. We had two ladies called Pierette and one of them had prepared boudin (sausage) for lunch. When we first came here, there was no way I wanted to eat it. I'm never been keen on the British equivalent either - black pudding. But then one time we were out for Sunday lunch and a little glass was served as an amuse-bouche containing warm boudin and apple purée. Quite delicious and I've been quite happy to eat it since. Pierette had a tried and tested recipe. Her boudins were fantastic. The process however is lengthy - five hours alone for the cooking which has to be done at a specific temperature. There was also cheese, rillettes, paté and desserts - all home made and just wonderful, wine if you wanted it, coffee, water.  We had more work to get done in the afternoon, so I kept away from the wine and had a light lunch. No way was I going to fall totally comatosed into the vines on my first vendange. Bottom right hand corner of the photo is the French equivalent of Jim Trott from the Vicar of Dibley. Yvon was as funny but without the stutter.

Lunch over, it was back on to the trailer and off to another parcelle of vines. This time Pierette (Yvon's wife)  and Mireille looked after the fouloir, while the rest of us worked our way up and down the vines. It's very easy to understand why so many vignerons have back problems and have to wear a back support. The constant lifting and bending - it's relentless day after day. Doing it for one day, no problem.

We got everything done very quickly so we were asked to help harvest some betterave or beetroot. At least that's what they were called. But in fact they were mangelwurzels.  The technique is to kick them out and then chuck them into the trailer that is being towed up each row very slowly by tractor. Kicking them out is the easy bit but throwing them into the trailer is something else. They can be big and heavy.

Pascal had helped with the harvest since he was a boy, so was able to get into a regular rhythm, pull the betterave out of the ground very quickly and lob them into the trailer two at a time, in more or less a continuous action. Both he and Mireille drive tractors, so if one was driving the other was helping with the harvest, and vice versa. We had such a satisfying day. By the end of the afternoon we were mildly stiff, but we felt we'd been really useful and had a great time meeting and working with the others. 

Not sure what time we finished - but about 6pm. Then we all made our way back to Gérard and Janette's place to get everything tidied up, meaning unhitching the trailer, off-loading the equipment, the vegetables and the grapes, cleaning off all the secateurs, and washing up the buckets. Grandma came out to see everyone then we all wandered up to the back of the yard towards a big barn where all the grapes had been put into five large circular containers about 1.10m high. Mireille was filling washing up bowls with water  and brought them over the the barn along with a bag of towels. Then she said that to bring everything to a close for the day, there was just one more thing that the newbies on the team had to do. Another tradition! Each of us had to climb into each of the containers, one at a time and tread the grapes, or rather wade in the grapes because apart from the fifth one, all the others were full to about 2 inches from the rim (0.50). 

Basically we had to get our trousers off in order to do it. Hilarious. Thank goodness I had a decent pair of M&S knickers on. Mike was fine being so tall, but us girls having completed the task, walked away with pink pants. Got most of the grape coloured water off ourselves by having a mini shower with the water that Mireille had so kindly provided. Very weird sensation and a bit cold, but afterwards, strangely refreshing,  Fortunately we'd bought some clean underwear just in case the weather was horrible and we got drenched. Then after the ritual we went back to our friend's house, had a shower and got changed. It was one of those things where just have to go with the flow.  Once you were in a container unless you were tall it was really difficult to get out. Trying to get your leg over -  I knew how daft it must look and we just couldn't stop laughing. Mireille has got some photos, which hopefully she'll be emailing  and which hopefully I'll be brave enough to post. 

After getting cleaned up we had an apéro together, and then ended up back in the garage for a wonderful dinner. Such a fun evening, delicious good with loads of singing. A mixture of French harvest songs and French chansons to begin with. But then Mike and I did some stuff. He'd brought his ukulele and we did about six songs together, some in English and others in French - mostly Beatles music which is very popular over here. Later there were questions for the newbies to answer and prizes - another tradition. It all went so well, that we got invited back for the second harvest in two weeks time. We'd love to have gone, but in fact we're in Paris so can't. Anyway a great experience and fingers crossed we'll get invited again next year.