Vendemia / vendange *

Starting in the cool of the early morning and into the midday heat, eleven of us worked to pick the Syrah grapes from a small parcelle, filling two trailers for our friends' wine. The other larger vineyards the family own are picked by machine and the grapes taken to a cave cooperative, but these are specially hand-picked to make a relatively small amount of high-quality wine. It's a beautiful place to spend the morning, high on a ridge with a view in one direction across about 30 kilometres of vineyards (mostly) to the sea and in the other direction to the village and the distant mountains of the Haut Languedoc. I spent more time than the others resting because I'm not so fit, and taking photos because our friends are keen to have a record of the process, so I had time to contemplate how lucky I was to be out on such a morning and involved in making wine as people here have done for generations. How others manage to do this work for three weeks without a break, though, I find it hard to understand!

* Occitan and French for grape harvest.