The first task of the day was to rearrange wine barrels. All in all, four barrels had to be moved to a new location - two of them had been empty for quite some time and thus quite light, the other two were recently "watered" and thus significantly heavier - and washed so that they could later be filled with wine. While Michael and I took care of the barrels, Luc picked up Clémence from the hospital.
Lunch was good fun because Luc and Clémence were joking that they now have a full pair of hands together. Luc has a good right and Clémence a good left. So they perfectly fit together!
After the meal, we drove to the vineyards in Argis. That was the first time I was on a vineyard this year. It was great. Awesome view, delicious grapes and no hard work. At least not today. Harvest on Luc's vineyards won’t start until Saturday and Sunday. Today, I only helped installing a kite in the shape of a bird on the vineyard to scare away birds. After that, Luc and I went back to the house; Michael spent the afternoon cutting the wine.
At home, I helped Luc pump the wine into the barrels we had prepared in the morning. This went smoothly and quite quickly. I went to the vineyard to check on Michael and take some pictures. Since Michael was not done yet, I did not stay too long and went back to the house, so Luc and Clémence could use the car back to pick up Mélina.
When the three of them returned, I went back to the vineyard to pick up Michael. For over three hours he had cut the wine in the blazing sun. But he said it wasn’t too bad because in Florida (where he’s originally from) it's even hotter and also humid. This feels like spring to him. Temperatures reached over 30°C at one point!
In the evening, some friends stopped by. We drank cider and talked (Michael and I, and the French among each other – I can’t keep up with the French when there’re more than 3 people involved).
After a late dinner, I went to bed early today, because tomorrow we’ll harvest. We’ll be helping Patrick (at whose place we had snails and cheese fondue) with the harvest in the morning, and in the afternoon us wwoofers will probably have some time off to recover before a long weekend of harvesting.
Today’s pictures were all taken in the vineyard.
