Vine watching has made me notice things more. By paying particular attention to what’s happening in the vines, it’s as if my eyes have been opened to much more besides. I’m seeing flowers and wildlife I never noticed before. The mountains around us change with the light. Sometimes they completely disappear into a blue haze. At other times, when they are backlit, they seem close enough to touch. The rest of me is becoming more attuned to my surroundings, too. I can feel shifts in the weather; sense changes in pressure. I can tell with my eyes closed when there’s a storm on the way. And, hey, I must be benefitting from all that extra walking I’m doing up hill and down dale.

The weather is peculiar this year. Although we’ve had days warm enough to wear flip flops and a few evenings warm enough to eat outdoors and do a spot of GaryWatching, spring has stayed generally much cooler than usual. Also, we’ve had more rain. As a result, weeds and grasses are growing to monster proportions. There’s more work in the vineyards.

Weeds love the weather we’ve been having: cooler, damper. They’re not welcome. They have to go. Out come the tractors again, towing their little rotavators. In the picture above, note the air-condtioning unit on top of the cab. When this grower’s grandfather tended the vines, he wouldn’t have had such a luxury on his horse and cart!

Drivers have to swing out into the lanes to make their turn for the next row. Where there is no lane to use, the turn is too sharp and the pattern of work shifts to tilling alternate rows. In places where it’s narrower still, they work every third row, backwards and forwards through the vineyard till it’s all done.

Then you get a clear picture of those familiar stripes running through the land.

Our Mademoiselle Merlot is now quite a lady. Here she is in close up, showing healthy babies on the way.

High winds this last week have caused some damage to the vines on the outer rows where the stalks have been snapped clean away from the branch. But our baby is looking fine and has come through the gales in good condition.

Rainstorms always come to this part of France in early spring at the transition between cool weather and the powerful heat of summer, but this year it’s happened later.

There is STILL snow on top of Canigou and until it’s gone we can expect more cool winds. However, the vineyards look good to me.

The hill in the far distance is Mont St. Loup which overlooks Cap d’Agde, a popular holiday resort with French families. Every water sport you can think of is there. In July and August Cap d’Agde is as packed with people as our vineyards are full of grapes. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get the picture.

As for the Chardonnay vineyard which, you remember is across the lane. Here’s this morning’s photo.

I was standing in my usual spot to take this picture. It’s only a matter of weeks since I said that in a short time you wouldn’t be able to see through the foliage to the earth between the rows. The contrast is remarkable.

I’ll keep watching to see what the growers do about all that whippy growth. My feeling is most of it will be cut back.

More vines further along this morning’s vineyard walk. There are so many lanes criss-crossing through the vineyards, you can take a different walk every day and catch different views of the countryside. Sometimes, something unexpected happens, like the day I saw the perfect circle drawn in the sky by a fighter jet.

This morning’s surprise was a solitary figure hand-hoeing between the vines. My camera is always ready so I asked him for permission to take his picture. When he learned I was going to put him on the internet, he was happy to oblige.

Between each vine, this wine grower is using the space to grow broad beans. I hadn’t seen this before. Whether there is mutual benefit to beans and grapes I couldn’t say. My French isn’t good enough to understand everything he was saying and his French sounded Spanish. Many of the growers in our departement of Herault came from Spain to find work and settled here. They speak French, but with Spanish intonation. It’s lovely, but difficult for me to follow.

He insisted we took some beans. They’ll be fantastic lightly steamed and with a knob of butter on top.

I hope you’re enjoying this weekly catch up with what’s happening in the vineyards near my home. I’m certainly enjoying putting it together. I’d like to say thank you for visiting my website. Do please leave a comment if you wish and don’t forget to sign up for news of new posts.

Cheers!

Celia

P.S. Due to computer problems, I’m posting this week’s report early, while my machine is up and running. It keeps turning itself off. The poor old girl is due for retirement.

I don’t want to miss out anything important from my Vine Reports. Sometimes, there are things happening in the vines that I’d miss if I waited for Wednesday. That’s why on Sunday morning when I heard engines and activity at first light I was up out of bed and rushing out the door camera in hand. This is what was going on:

Wine growers spray the crops with a copper sulphate mixture to prevent powdery mildew, a fungus that can affect grapes and decimate harvests. At the brow of the hill, there’s an old-fashioned water pump. Due to our location close to mountains and river gorges, our aquifers can be quite high after heavy spring rain. Water races toward the villages in the foothills. Drainage ditches fill with fresh water, rich in minerals.

The wine growers add water to their tanks of copper sulphate to make the right mixture. It’s like what we common or garden growers would call Bordeaux mixture. Professor of botany Pierre Millardet of the university of Bordeaux discovered in the late 1800s that a mixture of copper sulphate and lime had fungicidal properties.

 

 

 

 

 

I like these cute little tractors. They remind me of some of the picture books I used to read with my children. Working machines all had sweet little faces and going out to work physically hard looked such jolly good fun children wanted to do it when they grew up.

 

 

 

 

I can still remember some of the words of favourite Ladybird books. Weren’t they wonderful illustrations too? Oh, shouldn’t all children have those to look at when they’re little? And aren’t the originals just the best, or am I just feeling my age?

Who could ever forget . . .Little Tommy, Ginger’s neighbour called for Ginger every day. Took him out in wind and sunshine, out across the fields to play . . .

I’d better stop. I’m filling up!

Back to the vineyards. The tractors might be cutesy looking things but they work hard, out in the wind and sunshine, out across the fields to . . . work the vines, clear the rows, protect the grapes from powdery mildew.

Here’s how the Merlot vineyard looked on Sunday morning. I was waiting for this morning for the up to date close-up.

The sun was in exactly the wrong place for this early morning photograph of our vineyard of Merlot grapes. Our Mademoiselle is in there, front row, doing very nicely.

Spraying takes place every 6 to 10 days, depending on the temperature and humidity etc., but according to one wine grower, you can cease spraying once the grapes are set. I suppose they all have their preferred methods based on what their fathers and grandfathers did before. They probably still argue over which method is best.

Wine growers are always first to gather at the Bar in the village centre. You can see them having their early morning coffee and pastis before they return to work. Their faces are lined by the sun; their hands gnarled by the wind. They look like their own vines.

So here she is, our Mademoiselle Merlot. She’s looking perky this morning, wouldn’t you say? The sun is already casting shadows and I’m out here in the vineyards by myself. Soon there’ll be dog walkers and a few serious runners. As summer progresses, they’ll be out earlier before it gets too hot.

And now, Mr de Mille, I’m ready for my close-up.

Aww! Baby grapes! Oh-la-la, Mademoiselle. You are soooo beautiful. Hold it right there. Don’t flutter a leaf. Let me drink you in.

Not yet, Celia. Don’t get carried away. This is the Vine Report not a cheesy chapter in second rate erotica. Pull yourself together. What’s happening in the Chardonnay vineyard?

A fine sight. I can almost hear corks popping.