Vendanges 2013

As we both used to do for the last few years, I went to pick grapes for a family who are great friends. This year of course I had to do the photographs too - not easy when your hands are wet and sticky with grape juice, and have to be washed from a water bottle. It's a noisy, convivial event, with lots of gossip and backchat, half in Occitan and half in French. A friend who joined us midway through the morning said it sounded from a distance like a poulailler - a chicken run. Cue many more jokes on a chicken theme.
This crop will yield a wine for drinking in 2015 - after aperitifs at midday we tasted last year's to check on progress, and it's already very good.
For connoisseurs, today we picked syrah, and next week grenache, for an eventual 60/40 assemblage.