Rosé! Grace du Dieu!

All being well, we'll be corking 200 bottles of carignan rosé in the spring. Now we have only the rest of the carignan to get in for red. I won't post a photo of more crates of grapes as one looks very like another so here's one of Sue working the dégrappeur.

The Rosé That Wasn't

Up at the crack with an international team of vendangeurs to pick enough carignan to make some experimental rosé. All went well until the promised wine press failed to arrive. By the time it did the mushed grapes had been sitting too long and had too much tannin and colour. 

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Now the Magic Happens.

In these blue barrels are five hundred litres of Syrah grapes stewing away. After about three weeks when all the sugar has fermented out we'll press them and put the vile tasting wine into cuves to let it improve and become delicious. The fermentation begins spontaneously from the yeasts on the grape skins and takes a few days to get started. After that it's almost ezplosive and the grapes can be pushed out the top of the barrel  if you don't leave enough room. 

PS People who voted to leave the EU are provably idiots.

Pallet World!

After yesterday's  vendange with the Syrah we have been slaving in the carignan putting up a boar-proof fence. Pallets are the answer to all the world's problems!!

PS https://youtu.be/uovt1sC3rtM

Wine! Wine! WINE! All we do is wine!

The village is awash with wine. The vendange is underway and the grapes are coming in and being processed into cuves. Our vendange for the syrah may happen on Friday.  Meanwhile we bottled the last of last year's and squeezed out another sixty four bottles. We opened one for lunch hence this post!