Vendange

In the previous post I introduced one of the local wine specialities, Picpoul de Pinet, Picpoul being the grape variety and Pinet being the village carrying the appelation. Along with Mike and Linda, we visited a couple of caves, one a cooperative in Pomérols (not to be confused with the Pomerol of Bordeaux fame) and one, our favourite Picpoul de Pinet producer, in Pinet itself. I normally don’t buy quantities of wine in bottles because the glass adds considerable weight but for Picpoul de Pinet I’m prepared to make an exception; it can be a difficult wine to track down at home. For some odd reason, our car felt considerably heavier and more sluggish on the return trip. 😉

Vendange [the grape harvest], supposedly a very good one this year, is now in full swing. What that means is that you are unlikely to drive down any of the roads, be they side roads or a main roads, in the area without finding your progress impeded by one of the many classic small tractors pulling a trailer laden with freshly harvested bunches of grapes. The tractors are limited to 25kmh but, hey, they’re producing our favourite drink and I’m in no hurry. 🙂

Today we cycled past our favourite Picpoul de Pinet cave once again. Cycling is much the better option ‘cos you can’t carry away any booty and, as you can see from the picture, there isn’t much room remaining on the street for anything else to get by. The place was swarming with tractors delivering trailer-loads of grapes having recently been holding up traffic on their journey from the various vineyards. About half a dozen were lined up across the front of the cave making a sight that rather resembled a Le Mans start for a tractor race – top speed 25kmh, of course.

‘T was a great piece of local colour. The folks selling the wine were also kind enough to replenish our water bottles for the return trip