by Caro Feely
Chapter 6
Vendanges!
The blue monster, our 'affectionate' name for the harvest machine, rolled into the courtyard a few hours before dawn. Three metres high, it had penetrating lights and a unique sound that meant we knew it was on its way long before it arrived. I greeted François, the driver, explained what was planned for the morning, then ran ahead pointing out the rows.
The process of indicating the rows to harvest was one of my favourite moments: the sky was usually bright with stars, the vines heavy with promising fruit, and there was a feeling that no one else was awake in the world. The perfume of the sauvignon blanc, always the first of our varietals to be ready, floated tantalisingly on the air. As I ran, I felt adrenalin pump through my body. The frost meant small harvest volume, so every litre would count. The lost buds meant we had half the grapes of a usual harvest in some parts of the vineyard. We had to be on top form. Harvest was dangerous and complicated, we could not put a foot wrong, not only for our safety but also financially. We could not afford the juice lost from a loose cap or a missed connection this year.
Philosophically, and for selection of the later-harvested varietals, we preferred hand-picking; economically, we preferred machine. A person hand-picking could assess quality and sort good from bad, which harvest machines could not do. This was why the Saussignac dessert wine, made from grapes attacked by a special rot called Botrytis cinarea, had to be hand-picked. But high labour costs in France meant the harvest machine, despite its high capital cost, was significantly less expensive than hand-picking on most vineyards.
Our organic vineyards surrounded the house and winery, allowing us to pick and process in record time in the cool dawn. This reduced the exposure to air and heat during harvest and transport, thus lowering the need for SO to protect against oxidation.
Organic practices also help reduce the need for SO in the first place. In the process of protecting themselves naturally through the season, the vines create additional elements that a chemically protected vine does not, like more resveratrol, the powerful antioxidant found in grape skins, which Naomi wanted for her new supplement. These elements also protect the grapes and the subsequent wine.
A key factor driving the SO2 level required to protect a wine is the level of acidity. Ironically, chemical fertilisers used by conventional winegrowers contain a potassium dose that means the chemically farmed vines have lower natural acidity in their grapes and hence in the finished wine, so they need more sulphites. The lower the acidity, the higher the SO2 needs to be. It is a direct inverse relationship, part of the calculation for the level of SO2 required to protect a given wine at the final moment of truth, bottling. I had noticed that visitors were becoming more aware of and interested in this aspect of winemaking. On a visit a few weeks before to Nathalie Cuisset, Thierry Daulhiac's sister, who farmed with her husband Gérard a couple of kilometres from us on the opposite side of Saussignac, Jeremy, an English client, turned and asked: 'What do they use to preserve the wine?'
'C'est quoi comme préservatif?' I asked Nathalie on Jeremy's behalf, using the handy translation technique of 'take an English word and put a French accent on it'.
Nathalie, dark-haired, quiet and a strict Catholic, laughed uncontrollably for a minute and I wondered what was going on.
'Préservatif means condom in French,' she said, stifling another fit of giggles. 'We don't use any in our wines. We use SO2 as the conservateur.'
We all laughed heartily as I explained my mistake to Jeremy and his entourage and blushed a deep shade of pink.
A little out of breath from galloping back up the hill after pointing out the rows to the harvest-machine driver, I found there had been no need to run. Seán was ready along with Ad, our close friend from Holland who helped harvest every year.
The previous afternoon Seán and Ad had walked the vineyard removing anything that was damaged or diseased. Since the machine was unable to select, we did a 'negative hand-pick', removing what we didn't want the day before the machine harvest.
'Are you sure everything is ready?' I asked Seán.
'Yes, the vats are connected to the pipes, the lids are on, everything has been checked and rechecked. All we have to do is wait.'
'I'll make tea for everyone, so,' I said, using 'so' like the Irish, a manner of speech picked up during our time in Dublin. We sat down at the old pine table in the kitchen.
'It is strange to be so calm on a harvest morning,' I said.
'You are right, Caro,' said Ad. 'How I remember the panic the first year or even the second. Remember when the trailer blocked and we had to hand-bucket the load from the trailer to the press?'
He laughed, a lovely rolling laugh, one we had come to know well. Harvest wouldn't be the same without Ad and his balding head, wide smile and generous spirit.
We sipped our tea and reminisced.
'I still feel on edge but so much more in control,' I said. Seán nodded, put down his cup and zoomed out to check where the machine was.
His head popped back round the door. 'He'll be up in a few minutes. We'd better get into position.'
The moment of calm was over. When the machine rolled back into the courtyard Seán lined up the trailer while I checked that the fruit bins would empty into it, indicating with hand signs to François, who watched me and the trailer in his rear-view mirrors. The fruit passed from machine to trailer without losing a drop. We were usually good with this step in the process. In our first year we had just one small spill, about 50 litres, in the transfer of a load of white grapes.
Sophia and Ellie loved the harvest, rising early – it was hard not to with the noise in the courtyard – to watch television. It was a treat; usually there was no TV allowed in the working week and none in the morning even on weekends. Strictly prohibited from stepping outside while the large machinery was about, their little faces waited patiently at the lounge window until I came inside to help them switch on our old fat television. The last trailer was perfectly timed for me to take them to school. Sophia had overseen breakfast and getting dressed. They had successfully shod themselves and got their bags ready. Now six and four, they had to get on and be responsible. Harvest time was not for wimps.
After the school run I left Seán and Ad pressing the grapes and transformed from my harvest look of waterproofs and strong boots into smart pinstripe trousers, cotton shirt and pearls. Chris and I were going to a biodynamic vineyard in Castillon, that of Clos Puy Arnaud, then on to Saint-Émilion.
Thierry Valette moved with fluidity, his lithe body relaxed but at the same time containing a taut energy. He had left a life as a musician and modern dancer in Paris to make wine at Clos Puy Arnaud. The vines around his beautifully crafted wood buildings were planted tight, the way we wanted to plant our vineyards when we bought the new tractor. Like us, he had left a completely different career, but he had a family history of wine going back four generations in Saint-Émilion. His explanation was passionate and moving: 'Wine is a reflection of the winemaker. They play the music, they play the terroir. You can have a grand terroir but if it isn't played it won't make music. We touch our vines about fourteen times a year. It's all that human activity, the care in the vineyard that makes great wines.'
Moving us into his new winery and barrel store, he explained the investments he had made in the facilities: 'Making a great wine takes three things: intention, investment and work. You cannot have it without all three.' Chris asked him if he was satisfied; if pursuing his passion had brought the fulfilment he was looking for.
'There is no question, being a winegrower is tough. You have to have a sacred fire for it, a passion, and ideally a bit of money put aside since it always costs more than you expect and brings in less than you hoped. I think that if I hadn't pursued organic and biodynamic I would not have had the will to persevere.'
He had captured exactly how I felt. For all the difficulty of winegrowing – perhaps true for all small-scale farming – what kept us motivated and excited was the
yearly advance towards a healthy soil, one that could reveal the true taste of a place. Each year brought better equilibrium in our vineyards and, for us, more experience in this complex profession. It was as if he was following the thoughts in my head.
'After working with Anne for six years, we work as a team.' He worked with Anne Calderoni, an oenologist – wine scientist – who specialised in organic and biodynamic. 'We don't even need to talk. I make the final decision but Anne is the driving force. She likes risk more than I do. She always wants to push the harvest date as late as possible. I like to be more cautious – I want to make sure I have something to harvest.'
Anne had saved us from stuck malo in our first year when we were in the merde with our merlot. Malo is shorthand for malolactic fermentation, a natural deacidification that takes place in most red wines. It is a conversion of malic acid, like green-apple acid, to lactic acid, like milk acid, to make the wine smoother. It usually happens naturally, although it is possible to encourage it with heat and lactic bacteria. When our first vintage malo wouldn't budge, Anne was the angel that helped us work out what was going on and find a solution.
A barrel served as a makeshift tasting counter in the chai. I took the glass Thierry offered delicately by the stem, swirled the wine around my mouth for a few minutes and spat into the spittoon. The wines were delicious: clean and long. I preferred his second, less-expensive wine that had less oak, but could see how the first was still too young to drink. It had more ageing potential from higher tannin, which would be achieved through leaving it longer on the skins, from the use of new barrels and from longer barrel-ageing. It needed time.
After visiting Saint-Émilion village and another tasting, we returned to Terroir Feely as the last rays of evening sun splashed through the courtyard. Seán and Ad were finishing off cleaning the press and preparing to coldsettle the juice. Seán handed Chris and me a cup of pure sauvignon. He was justifiably proud. It was truly fine. The only problem was the volume. When I later entered the figures into my spreadsheet I felt a ball of dread in my stomach; the frost had taken a heavy toll.
Deciding the date to harvest each parcel or part of a vineyard is a delicate and tough call.
Seán and I walked the sémillon vineyards together. The vines, planted in 1945, were gnarled and twisted like sculptures, their coif of green hair exuberant with summer growth and their grapes hanging down golden and rich. We had analysed a sample for sugar and acidity levels but nothing beat tasting – and smelling, as I had learnt with Corinne – the grapes in the vineyard. Seán was two rows away; we had spread out to cover more of the vineyard.
'The skins are giving interesting aromas of peach and passion fruit,' he said looking over the vines to me. 'Yes, it's good over here, too. A hint of green apple, as well,' I said.
We kept walking. When we reached the end of the vineyard we talked through our impressions. 'The sugar and acidity are just right,' concluded Seán. 'We should pick tomorrow.'
I agreed and took out my mobile to book the harvest machine. It felt great being able to decide our harvest date on our own. In previous years we had been at the beck and call of our oenologist, waiting for her to make the final call. Over time we had realised that we were totally different to farms nearby; our vines marched to their own tune, their own rhythm. There were so many variables that contributed to this – the way we farmed, the soil, the slope, the age of the vines, the varietal… the list was endless. No one was better qualified to make the decision than ourselves, knowing our vines as intimately as we did.
The following day the harvest machine arrived in the courtyard fifteen minutes late and bearing a new driver. We introduced ourselves. I explained what we were picking and ran through the pre-dawn darkness indicating the rows. It was cloudy, there were no stars to marvel at, but at least it wasn't raining. The first load arrived faster than we expected. The guy was in a hurry.
As we lined up the trailer the driver tipped the first bin, not watching us at all. I yelled and waved but he couldn't hear above the noise and kept tipping. As part of our precious harvest tipped onto the courtyard floor I let out a scream of anguish that broke through the noise barrier and he looked in his rear-view mirror and stopped the tip. It felt like minutes but was just a few seconds – enough to lose about 100 litres of our precious grapes. The colour drained from my face in horror. Seán motioned to me to calm down and backed into perfect position.
I gave the driver a stiff thumbs-up but felt like giving him the two fingers. He emptied smoothly and I breathed deeply and counted to ten. Throwing a tantrum wouldn't help. Everyone was under pressure. If we sent this driver away we probably wouldn't get the machine for a few days. We had to get through this sémillon and then I would have a word with Serge, the manager of the drivers.
We could not afford to lose grapes with already low yields from the late frost. A bout of bad weather around flowering meant it was a vintage of double jeopardy. Ironically, this could be good for quality, as there were fewer grapes per bunch, meaning better aeration and less potential for disease. It was never good for our wallets, though, as the small increase we could demand for higher quality never compensated for lost yield. The rest of the morning the transfers went smoothly.
But pure plain sailing was not to be. Harvest was always guaranteed to include the unexpected, to raise the heartbeat a little. As Seán raised the pressure on the press to two bars on the last load, we heard a high-pitched whine then an ominous wheeze and a crunch. It ground to a halt. Seán and Ad tried a few adjustments and the machine growled, but would not spring to life. Ad was a retired mechanic, the perfect person to assess the damage. The failed part was a key component, part of the turning mechanism. We knew that repair would cost over four times what the press would be worth afterwards, since our regular mechanic, Monsieur Bonny, had provided a devis, a quote, when he warned it was looking worn.
The ancient press was finished. Lijda, Ad's wife, gamely donned cycling shorts and sterilised her feet, then climbed into the press to stomp the grapes in a vain effort to release the last of the juice. Fortunately most of the pressing on the load was already done, but losing this last bit of press juice was another small blow to already low yields and a new press was another investment we would have to make if we wanted to stay in the game. When Seán walked the vineyards that afternoon they were roughed up, as if they had been through a storm. With a careful driver there was little damage, but a careless one could wreak havoc. Trying my best to keep my cool, I left a message for Serge that we did not want that driver again.
Naomi, the American grape-skin hunter, asked if she could visit to capture harvest on film. Progress with Naomi was good, a reminder that if you kept going in the hard times new opportunities presented themselves. If we hadn't stuck to our organic principles – against the economic odds and against the advice of vineyard 'specialists' – I wouldn't have received her call in the first place.
I invited Naomi to join us on any remaining harvest days; we had several hand-picks planned for our top reds and for the Saussignac dessert wine, including our first vine-shareholder harvest day. After starting the vineshare quietly with Di and Derek as our first members, it had taken on a momentum of its own and the harvest day had twenty people signed up. Since most of the guests were flying in specially, we set the date well in advance and prayed for good weather.
Thierry was fine-tuning the process of drying the marc for Naomi, using Gérard and Nathalie Cuisset's prune ovens. Gérard and Nathalie (Thierry's sister) dried their organic plums into prunes on their property, as well as making organic wine. In our centuries-old winegrowing community there were family connections everywhere. The Cuissets' equipment could be used without worrying about chemical contamination, plus they were geographically close to Thierry and ourselves. Each time I saw Nathalie she seemed to have a little smile playing on her lips, like she was remembering my preservative faux pas. With Thierry and Gérard's experiments, the process for drying the marc became reliable and re
peatable and the new business opportunity with Naomi inched forward.
Chris left us to continue his voyage on to Burgundy and harvest hurtled forward. The next grapes ripe for picking were on the young merlot vines, the ones we used for our everyday red. I called to reserve the machine and Serge explained that the driver we didn't want was the only one available.
'Maybe we should wait until we can get another driver,' I said to Seán after sharing Serge's bad news.
'I don't think we can. The grapes are ready. Another few days and we will miss the window. Rain is forecast.' We sat at the worn pine table in the kitchen debating the situation. We were torn.
'Better to pick at the right moment with the wrong guy than at the wrong moment with the right guy,' said Seán.
I called Serge back and confirmed for the following morning.
When our favourite driver rolled into the courtyard a half-hour late, Seán and I tried to be civil. Climbing high onto the landing outside the harvest-machine's door to catch a lift to the vineyard on the far end of the farm, my senses were assaulted by a haze of smoke and what seemed like a hint of alcohol. Convincing myself it was the smell of grapes, I pushed aside the worry about the renegade driver and focused on holding on. As we set off down the track a hare disappeared into the night then a deer. It was like a pre-dawn safari.
