The Vendange (grape picking) has started, it is September 1st, and it seems to get earlier each year. The vines that I check the time of year by, by observing, have come to full fruit and the decision has been made to harvest.
The fields are full of people picking and in the bigger vineyards the big automatic picking machines are in full roar.
On the roads there are long queues caused by the farmers tractors with their trailers pondering towards the Wine C0-Operative where they get their grapes weighed and put into the pot with everyone else’s to create the local table wine.
There seems to be a great difference between the small vineyards that seem to sell to their Co-Operative and the larger, well known ones, which have their own processing equipment and Caves.
The wine from the larger ones are quite a lot more expensive and travel further around Europe and Provence wine can now be found in Supermarkets in most countries.
It is strange to see the tractors of the local vineyards as they are very narrow and designed to move between the rows of grapes.
The pickers are usually family, students or foreigners but I read in the French papers that due to the high unemployment rate there are more French people asking to assist this year.
The fields are full of people picking and in the bigger vineyards the big automatic picking machines are in full roar.
On the roads there are long queues caused by the farmers tractors with their trailers pondering towards the Wine C0-Operative where they get their grapes weighed and put into the pot with everyone else’s to create the local table wine.
There seems to be a great difference between the small vineyards that seem to sell to their Co-Operative and the larger, well known ones, which have their own processing equipment and Caves.
The wine from the larger ones are quite a lot more expensive and travel further around Europe and Provence wine can now be found in Supermarkets in most countries.
It is strange to see the tractors of the local vineyards as they are very narrow and designed to move between the rows of grapes.
The pickers are usually family, students or foreigners but I read in the French papers that due to the high unemployment rate there are more French people asking to assist this year.
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