'Tis the Season...

...for making wine!


It started as a gloomy-looking Saturday, but off we trudged into the vineyard to harvest this years' crop.


When we got there, however, the grapes were ripe for pickin'!

We started just before 10am, picked for a while, got caught in a touch of rain and headed in for lunch. That's when the reserve workers arrived-- neighbors and family. Will's mom cooked up a delicious and hearty meal-- prosciutto and fresh figs, fresh pasta with ragu' and roast chicken. We worked on finishing off the wine from 2004, had a little coffee (and grappa for a brave few) and again hit the fields.

The afternoon pick went quite smoothly and the sun actually made a brief cameo before it rained again.



In my opinion, the work went well thanks to keen management, courtesy of neighbor Rocco, seen here working out some quality control issues:



He also drives a mean tractor!



We loaded the back of the tractor with bucket after bucket. We figured it was probably around a ton of grapes in total, which will ultimately be turned into around 700 litres of wine!



Will and his dad started right away de-stemming and crushing the white grapes, under management's watchful eye.



And keeping it a family affair, Rocco's brother Nico also kept watch.


And here's how the magic begins...







The grapes get dumped whole into the destemmer,








which separates the stems, etc. from the fruit,








and leaves you with this pile of stuff,








as well as the juice and skins.


The juice and skins then get pressed into mosto, to which you add yeast. The yeast eat the sugars and magically ferments the juice into wine!

As I mentioned, we're drinking the 2004 vintage now, so we'll have to wait a while to see how this year turns out. I bet it might be pretty good.

Now that the work is done, Will and I are taking off for another round of travel. We leave tomorrow for Bologna. We don't have a strict itinerary, but are thining of traveling through to Torino, Milano, the Veneto, perhaps back to Provence, through Switzerland and up to Berlin. There's also talk of trying to follow whatever warm weather might be left with a trip south through Sicily, the Greek Islands and over to see a friend of Will's in Istanbul.

So many options... so little time!