Glass Half Full
Page 3
I jogged back up to the winery and found Seán climbing down from the scaffolding we had set up beside the vat.
'Everything's ready,' he said. 'Let's watch the progress so we know when to get into position.'
From the terrace we watched the machine lumbering down the vineyard like a high-tech dinosaur. It straddled the row and shook the vines with metal bow-shaped arms that ran parallel across the inside, making the grapes fall into a conveyor belt of silicon baskets and leaving the stems behind. A stream of rejected matter exited the sorting system at the back, creating a green, brown, yellow and gold cascade that shimmered in the rear lights.
We knew that the stream contained critter collateral (lizards, mice, snakes and insects) and some were making it into the harvest bins despite the sorting – another reason we wanted to move to hand-harvesting everything. We didn't enjoy machine-harvesting but economically and organisationally it was the only option for our whites, rosé and everyday red. We were committed to a ten-year cycle with the harvest machine cooperative so we were stuck. Already by hand-picking the top reds and the dessert wine we weren't using what we paid for each year. No 'get out' or flexibility was a downside to joining a machine cooperative, something we only realised once we were in.
I took a deep breath. At harvest time we were stretched even more than usual. We expected to finish in time for me to take our daughters, Sophia and Ellie, to school and to allow time to change into more suitable attire for welcoming guests due for a day of wine school. Seán was focused on the culmination of his year's work in the vineyard while I tried to keep up with the cadence of visits and shoehorn harvest activity in alongside the constant stream of administration and emails generated by our growing business.
We stood quietly for a moment. At the top of the next row the harvester turned back on to the main track.
'Let's go,' said Seán. 'We don't want to keep him waiting.'
The harvester pulled into position and Seán backed the tractor up behind him. I felt nervous. From the pavement of our house I was perfectly positioned to see how well aligned the tractor and harvester were but also well away so I wouldn't be crushed. Safety was always in our minds. Every year farmers died in the process, either by a false step with a machine, falling from the top of a vat or ladder, electrocution or asphyxiation from the carbon dioxide given off in fermentation.
Seán and Benoît lined up and prepared to empty the bins. It was almost right but I could see that grapes would hit the lip of the trailer and be lost. I yelled and held my hand up. Benoît inclined the left bin then saw me and stopped the tip just in time. Seán pulled away and reversed back in. It was perfect. I gave the thumbs up and the harvest flowed smoothly across. The harvester took off again, while I turned back to the winery and watched Seán back the trailer into the entrance of the winery. The next step was connecting the trailer to the harvest pipe that would transfer the grapes to the vat. It was always a tough connection.
'Feck!' said Seán. 'Doesn't this make you dream of hand-harvesting?'
'Too right,' I said, panting with the effort of holding a pipe that was the thickness of a rugby player's thigh, with heavy metal ends, while Seán tried to close the join.
'Are you sure we have the right connector for this trailer?'
Seán gave me a withering look and cussed again.
The pipe got the message and clamped on.
He reached into the tractor cabin and switched on the power take-off (PTO) shaft that turned the auger, the screw conveyor, of the trailer. It hummed to life and fresh harvest began pumping into the pipe. The first splat hit the vat next to me and was followed by a rhythmical flow. Satisfied that the load was transferring smoothly, I climbed down the scaffolding. As I stepped on to the ground, the sound of pouring stopped. The auger was still going but harvest was not flowing through. I waved to Seán and climbed back up the scaffolding.
'Nothing's coming through,' I shouted and held my fingers in a cross.
A couple of years before, the auger was jammed by a metal hook and we had had to empty a trailer-load by hand. We learned the lesson well and hadn't used those metal hooks to repair the trellising since.
Seán turned off the trailer.
'It can't be a hook – it's still turning,' he said as if reading my mind. 'Stay up there. I'll turn it back on and up the power – maybe it needs a little more encouragement.'
Power made no difference. The auger just macerated our precious harvest more furiously for no result.
I shook my head, feeling a tiny stream of panic. Benoît would soon be back with the second load.
Seán stopped the tractor and came around to join me.
'It must be the angle of the pipe. The slope's too steep,' he said. 'We have to lift it.'
Seán crossed the winery floor to fetch an A-frame ladder then set it up at the middle point, raising the centre of the pipe half a metre above the original position on a stack of wooden pallets.
'Maybe that'll do it.'
'Could it really be as simple as that?' I said.
'Basic physics,' said Seán. 'You climb up there and make sure it stays in position.'
'Easy for you to say,' I said, clambering back up the scaffolding to hang on to the pipe. With hundreds of kilograms of harvest pumping through, it could be as dangerous as a python.
Seán looked back to check I was in place and started the auger. Harvest throbbed through the pipe, the ladder stayed firmly in position and, seconds later, grapes splattered into the vat. I gave a thumbs up and a relieved smile. In minutes the load was finished. I felt like we had climbed a mountain. Seán turned off the PTO.
I relished that there was no noise for a moment then realised the vineyard below the winery, where the harvester should have been working, was silent. I flung open the winery shutters. The dawn had painted a strip of pale orange and yellow across the top of Gageac hill. Above it a range of blues progressed up through the sky still filled with stars. But below that beauty the machine had stopped about ten metres into a vineyard row.
'Feck,' said Seán, looking over my shoulder. 'We'd better go and see what's happening.'
Breaking harvest part way was bad for us work-wise but it also meant oxidation for the juice that was already in the harvest-machine bins. Out in the vineyard, the harvested grapes were not protected by inert gas as they were once they were in the winery.
'Maybe we should take some sulphur dioxide,' I said.
'I'll come back if it's necessary,' said Seán. 'The earlier we start dosing the more it needs.'
Sulphur dioxide (marked as 'sulphites' on wine bottles) is a preservative for wine but it is also like a drug – if we started now our juice would be addicted, and we preferred to use as few sulphites as possible.
Seán closed the insulation curtain and the metal sliding door of the winery, and we jogged round to where the harvester was.
Benoît was pulling at a trellis pole that poked out of the machine at a nasty angle. The section of vines above him and all its trellising had been ripped out.
'A part of the trellis got caught,' said Benoît. 'I stopped as soon as I realised but it was already too late for them.'
He pointed to the uprooted vines, ancients that had lived happily on this hillside for nearly seventy years. I felt like crying.
Seán moved to help Benoît pull the pole. They yanked it with all their shared force and nothing moved.
'It's too far in. We can't pull it out,' said Seán.
Something about the situation made me want to laugh. The craziness of it, the sadness of the dying vines, the phrase Seán had just used. Seán glared at me and I put a face on that matched the seriousness of the scene.
'Do you have a chainsaw?' asked Benoît.
'Bien sûr,' Seán said and turned to fetch it.
'I am very sorry,' said Benoît.
'Don't worry, Benoît, it's only a few vines,' I said, trying to downplay the situation since I could see he felt bad. 'I hope the machine isn't damaged.'
In minutes Seán was back, large chainsaw in hand. He and Benoît discussed the best approach then the telltale buzz split the dawn and the pole succumbed piece by piece. They worked like surgeons, careful not to damage themselves or the harvester. The chainsaw went silent.
'At first glance the harvester looks OK,' said Benoît.
Seán rolled away the wires and the uprooted vines, and Benoît leaped up the ladder into the cabin. He drove ten metres then stopped, leaned out and gave us the thumbs up.
'Crisis over,' said Seán. 'Back to work.'
'We've been out here half an hour at least. Won't our fruit be oxidised from sitting exposed to the air for this extra time?' I said.
'There was very little in the bins. He had only done a couple of rows when it happened. It'll be all right,' said Seán.
In the winery I kept looking out of the window to check on Benoît's progress. With the delay we would finish close to when my group was due to arrive.
The sun was up when he came back. The transfer went smoothly and while Seán backed the trailer up to the winery and set about preparing for the next part, I signed Benoît's harvest papers.
'You can apply to the CUMA for insurance for the damage,' said Benoît. 'It must have been a loose trellis pole.'
'Well, thank goodness the machine is working fine,' I said, ignoring the delicate pass of the blame.
We checked the vineyard for loose vines and poles before the harvest machine passed but it was possible that one had seemed OK to human touch but not to a thwack of a three-ton harvest machine.
'Would you like an espresso before you go?' I said.
With the pressure I felt about the day ahead, I already regretted making the offer. As if sensing my stress, Benoît unusually declined.
'I need to get on and I know you do too,' he said, nodding his head in the direction of Seán waiting for me. Our harvest couldn't be delayed another second.
'Thank you so much, Benoît,' I said and kissed him on each cheek.
He waved farewell from the top of the ladder then swung into the cabin and closed the door. The harvester whined and beeped, its tyres turning up the gravel of the courtyard, then took off up the road, its bulk dwarfing the adult cherry trees at the entrance to the farm.
'Come on, come on,' shouted Seán.
Back in the winery, I climbed the scaffolding to hold the pipe that was now finely balanced over the A-frame ladder and Seán started the auger. In minutes, most of the harvest had made it into the vat and Seán was scraping the fruit from the edges of the harvest trailer. He chased them with a bucket of water, the extra pressure from behind necessary to get some of the last fruit through. Then he switched off the auger and tractor. Jointly we unhitched the pipe and hiked it, still heavy with fruit, into a food grade bin to collect the last few litres.
I rolled the nitrogen gas bottle – almost the same size as me – to the tank as Seán climbed up, then passed him the gas wand. Nitrogen is an inert gas and created a good blanket to protect our harvest from oxidation. He filled the tank with gas then handed it back to me and I rolled the bottle back into position.
Seven years of harvest and our motions were like a choreographed ballet. We moved automatically through the activities; no need to speak. Each year we improved our set-up and became more familiar with what we needed to do. We were old hands.
But the word 'hand' reminded me how important it was to not let familiarity allow our guard to drop. Seán had lost a third of his finger to the auger of the trailer we were using that day. It was the last day of our first harvest. Seán's finger still ached at times; the part that was missing itched like it was still there. It had recently started to grow a sharp bit of bone out of the side of the stub. He rubbed it subconsciously.
'We should have a cup of tea,' I said. 'I need to check on the girls anyway.'
Since the accident we had learned to take appropriate breaks during intense days. Being overtired created lapses in concentration that could be fatal on a farm and in a winery.
In the kitchen, Sophia and Ellie were putting on their shoes, preparing to go to school. They had dressed and eaten breakfast. Since they were too small to remember they had had to get on with their lives like tiny adults when we were in the midst of moments like harvest. I gave them each a hug and turned on the kettle.
'Are your bags ready?' I said.
They nodded sagely.
The kettle boiled as Sonia, our neighbour, arrived to pick them up. I quickly poured water into the two cups – black tea for me and rooibos for Seán – then went out to kiss Sophia and Ellie goodbye and help them up into Sonia's car. She had saved us on many occasions like she was that day, doing the school run for me at short notice.
'Bonne journée!' I shouted as they drove off.
In the kitchen plumes of steam rose over the cups and the fragrance of the two teas mingled in the air. I poured a drop of milk into mine and took the cups outside.
Seán and I sat down on a pallet and sipped our tea.
'I'll be OK doing the clean-up on my own,' he said. 'You get ready for your group. I can't help with the prep today.'
'I'll be busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking competition,' I said and laughed as I pictured the saying, a favourite of one of my sister's exes. With large groups, teaching all day plus preparing, serving and cleaning up was manic.
In the garden, the last of the baby tomatoes hung on the vines. I picked a few red orbs for my basket then tasted one, marvelling at the flavour. The view of the Dordogne Valley from the potager was like a scene from a fantasy film; mist swirled across the surface, parallel eddies snaking away from the river in constant movement. Immediately below us in the flat of the valley, two blue firs and the château of our neighbour's property peeked up through the mist as if they were floating on an enchanted cloud. I took in the view like a quenching drink of peace, then popped another tomato into my mouth, picked a few more for my basket and went inside to change into a dress and pearls. I slicked on lipstick and checked my face for sunscreen marks.
In the tasting-room kitchen, I set eight plates on the preparation table then cut the cheeses for the lunch and made the salad dressing. As I placed the cheeses back in the fridge, a minibus pulled up outside. My group had arrived, right on time.
For the next few hours, I was engrossed in sharing my passion for wine, terroir, vineyard, organic and biodynamic agriculture. After serving lunch, I jogged across the courtyard and wolfed down a slice of bread and tomato. Seán was stretched out on the sofa in the lounge for a half-hour siesta. Doing physical work all day, he needed a moment to recharge. There was no chance of that for me. I raced back to continue the lunch service and afternoon session.
The group left with warm farewells, promising to return and to share our address with friends. They were happy. The feedback forms on the table filled me with a warm sensation. Many said they left with a new appreciation for wine and particularly for organic wine. Of everything we were doing, this gave me the most satisfaction. It didn't feel like work. I loved it.
The cleaning up was another matter. I stacked as many glasses and plates as would fit into the dishwasher and set it to go so I could unload it and reload before closing up for the night.
It was already time to fetch Sophia and Ellie. I grabbed our dog Dora's lead and she barked with excitement.
We trotted up the last row of the hail-damaged Merlot to the village so I could see what it was like five days after the event. I didn't see any flies hovering or pick up smells of vinegar or rot as we passed, but there was no time to look closely – we were late. Dora sensed the urgency and raced ahead, pulling me up the hill like a sledge dog.
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br /> Sophia and Ellie were waiting at the school gate, the last to be collected. They gave me a look of reproach.
'Mes excuses pour le retard,' I said to Krystel, who ran the after-school service. ('Sorry I'm late.')
'Pas de problème,' she replied, her tone implying a little extra flexibility was allowed for winegrowers in the thick of harvest.
I kissed the girls on their foreheads.
'Sorry I'm late,' I said. 'Today has been hectic.'
'Don't worry, Mum,' said Sophia.
Ellie gave me a glare that said, 'Don't do it again.'
'So, how's life?' I asked as we set off back down the hill.
'OK,' said Sophia.
'Bof,' said Ellie.