La Vendange

‘Vendange’ means grape picking and in a recent post I mentioned that I had the privilege last month of being invited to the ‘vendange’ at my neighbours small vineyard. Nearly 50 of his family, friends and neighbours turned up on the day to pick and collect the grapes from his vines mirroring similar events that have taken place in much the same way for generations in this part of France (my neighbour’s family have lived in the same house since the 1600’s). Tradition also means that everyone who participated is then hosted to a slap-up meal by the ‘vigneron’ and in this also we were not disappointed.

My neighbour is much taken by my quadcopter video exploits and he suggested that I might like to be there and take a few shots of the day’s picking. I decided to go a step further and create a video showing the whole day but having done so I decided that I wouldn’t share it on Youtube or any other social media so as not to invade the privacy of the local people involved who are also, of course, my friends and neighbours. In the event, now that he’s seen it, my neighbour has said that he’s delighted to share it and he knows that everyone else will feel exactly the same, so now I can post it here on My Trike.

It was a fantastic day and immensely enjoyable. After the grape-picking was over – it only took until mid-day – we all sat down for an ‘apero’ and then the 30 who had stayed on shared the most hearty French meal that I’ve ever enjoyed. It started at about 12.30 pm and just went on and on. I left at about 5.00 pm and at least 20 were still there. I lost count of the courses. We started with soup then had shrimps, whelks, wild boar (I think) with haricots verts, cheese – they just kept coming. The haricots contained far too much garlic for me and I blamed them when I was as sick as a dog after I got home. The alcohol can have had nothing to do with it of course, but somehow every time my glass emptied it was magically full again with last-year’s vintage red wine, as did it also when we got onto the plum brandy at the end of the meal.

I was extremely touched as a ‘newcomer’ to be invited to share in the day and being regarded by the locals as ‘one of them’ is a great feeling. I was also very pleased with how the video turned out and I hope that it gives a good idea of the life down here and how warm the people in this corner of France are.