Grapes a go-go

The harvest (vendange in French) is almost over and the mornings are decidedly nippy at 14 degrees. I'm struggling to walk the dogs before sunrise and still be back in time to have breakfast ready for 8am. It's a little worrying to walk in the vines in pitch black having so recently seen a chunky wild boar. Anyway, with just eleven days to go to the end of the season it's not exactly a major problem.

My observation from daily visits to the vineyards is that the bunches of grapes look smaller this year, with individual grapes appearing much smaller than previously. I'm assuming this comes from no rain at all for months on end, coupled with a falling water table over the past five years. However, speaking to the lovely Christa from Domaine Bourdic last night, it appears that their superlative husbandry has seen them double their crop of Grenache this year, where everyone else has seen a falling yield. Their only problem now is where to put all the extra grapes - they've run out of tanks!

An hour later ....

I've just been to Domaine Bourdic to repair their computer. Christa says everything's broken down. The tractor broke down and the huge harvesting machine fell over when the driver misjudged the lie of the land. No doubt the labelling machine will break down when they start the bottling too! Who cares, they've got loads more grapes.