Les Vendanges | Medoc, Bordeaux, France

Les Vignes

So recently I had the opportunity to work the grape harvest in Bordeaux, France, just outside that famous appelation, Chateau Margaux, in the an area called Moulis-en-Medoc. It was an experience to say the least. Both exremely fun and extremely challenging, but completely worth it in the end. I had the opportunity to be completely immersed in all things French. From the wine and terroir to the language and food, it was France all the time and it was incredible. 

First a little background on Bordeaux wines.

Generally speaking, Bordeaux can be divided into basically four sections, Saint Emillion, Medoc, Entre-Deux-Mers and Sauturnes. Saint Emillion and Medoc produce reds, Entre Deux Mers give whites (and some reds because no one in Bordeaux would be silly enough to only plant Sauvignon Blanc, and not Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon) and Sauturnes is a sweet, gold colored wine that in our opinion is the nectar of the gods. See our post about 4 Spice and Sauturnes wine here.

Each section has certain grapes and wines that they predominantly grow (this is how tasters during a blind wine tasting can figure out where wines are from without looking at the label.)  Saint Emillion grows predominantly the Merlot grape, Medoc produces massive quantities of Cabernet Sauvignon, Entre Deux Mers, gives a white wine from the Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillion grapes (for sweetness) and finally Sauturnes is made with Sémillion grapes and occasionally a bit of Sauvignon Blanc for a bit of acidity. What sets the Sauternes wines apart is how they are harvested. They are left on the vine longer and harvested later, waiting until a  fungus begins to grow on the grapes called Noble Rot. It's this "rot" that gives a sweet wine with a richer color.

Another thing to know about wines from the Bordeaux region... They must be blends. If anyone ever tells you that you are drinking a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux, they don't know what they are talking about or the wine you are drinking is not really from Bordeaux. One exception to this is Saturnes as mentioned above which is made with 100% Sémillion. In fact, each region and appellation in France is governed by a very strict set of rules. In Bordeaux, one of those rule is all wines must be blends. (For example, this is not true in the Burgundy/Pinot Noir region, where wines are generally 100% Pinot Noir. This adds to the Bourgonian argument that wines from Burgundy are harder to make, as if you have a bad harvest, you cannot just blend something else in to make it taste better, where as in Bordeaux blending is obligatory. But this is an age old argument that we will not try to get in the middle of!)

So just to recap, in Bordeaux, the four main grape varietals are Cabernet Sauvignon (Medoc), Merlot (St. Emillion), Sauvignon Blanc (Entre Deux Mers) and Sémillion (Sauturnes).

How It All Started

A friend of mine is from the Medoc region and mentioned to me that she was going to work the wine harvest with her mother, who works year round at the chateau. I quickly jumped at the opportunity (in full disclosure, it was at the end of a themed dinner, Italy, and as one of my friends works for an Italian wine distributer, the wine was flowing!).

The next morning, I quickly regretted my decision as part of me was dying to jump for the opportunity and the other part of me was freaked out by the idea… Les Vendanges are infamous for being incredibly difficult and above all backbreaking! But I am not one to be dissuaded by a challenge or hard work… plus it was paid!

Well after much miscommunication, French paper work and the generosity of my friend’s family to house me for more than two weeks, (several days of which my friend would not be there because she was on her honeymoon… yes.. her plan was to return from her honeymoon in Ile de la Reunion (an island off the coast of Madagascar), fly back to Paris, arrive at 10pm, and then wake up the next morning at 4am to take the train to Bordeaux to begin working the harvest at 2pm. She’s a champ!)

So it works like this. Generally, large chateaux are made up of many, many parcels. Each parcel can be different: size, soil type, hill, grapes that are growing there, etc. So everything ripens at different times. When the harvest time is near, the winemaker/grape guy at the chateau walks the parcels and eats grapes. You can see a video here of the grape guy at the chateau where I was. When he thinks they are ready, he says Go! Phone calls go out to everyone who signed up to work the harvest. Usually there is a three day notice. I got my call, bought my TGV ticket, Paris to Bordeaux and then a smaller train to Margaux, packed my bags for all and any type of weather and conditions, and hit the road like a smiling idiot.

There I was, in the back of a fancy black Uber (after violent protests from French taxi drivers against Uber and other similar companies… which included lighting rows of tires on fire in front of the airport to prevent traffic from passing, the French president folded like a sheet and ruled in their favor, thus prohibiting regular Uber’s in Paris and only allowing Uber X, their black car, more expensive version) with my two big black roller luggages, wearing my Chanel perfume, lipstick and pearl earings, heading to the fields to work the harvest. Excellent, I was so excited. If only I knew what I was in for!

After almost missing my connecting train in Bordeaux, I made it to Margaux. I was warmly welcomed by Aurélia’s family, received my instructions for the morning, prepared my stuff and went to sleep.

The next morning, Thursday morning, I was estatic… so so excited! It was a stunning day. Loaded up with bugspray and we hit the fields.

So here’s how it works

Vineyards are made up of parcels. Parcels vary in length and size but they are arranged generally in long rows, what you typically think of when you think of a vineyard. In Bordeaux, the rows are very, very narrow and the vines are very, very low to the ground. (Each wine producing region is really different. In the USA, rows can be very wide, so wide a car can drive through them, in Italy vines can be very high, so high in fact that the grapes hang over your head!

At our vineyard in Bordeaux, the rows were at best two to three feet wide with grapes about one foot from the ground. (This is in my opinion the most difficult to harvest because they are so low and so narrow. Because they are so narrow, it’s not possible to have a cart come through the rows to collect grapes from “les coupers” (the cutters) after they have been cut. Instead, a “porteur,” a guy with a basket on this back walks up and down the rows, collecting grapes from les coupers and then walks the grapes back to the truck where they are sorted.

To start a parcel, a small black “seau” (bucket) is placed at the front of each “rang” (row). Each person chooses a rang and therefore a seau and number (you want to be next to your friends!), and that becomes your number for the day. For every five coupers there was one porteur. As the row are so narrow, he just leans over to collect from either side… talk about an ab workout!

I was number 14. My cutters were in the bucket and those along with my left glove would soon because my best friends for the next 14 days.

And we were off!

And after about 15 minutes… I said to myself.

"Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into."

It was repetitive, it was hard, it was boring, there were spiders (I hate spiders)! I was seriously freaked how I was going to get through the whole time.  

Here's a brief recap of the challenges:

1.     Bêtes – I hate bugs. Growing up in Hawaii, nothing is dangerous, the island has no snakes and basically no spiders. First thing I noticed in the fields… SPIDERS. Everywhere. I absolutely am terrified of them mostly I think because I wasn’t exposed to them a child. Now, in this parcel, I am totally surrounded by them. Everywhere. Excellent. Great. (In defense of the spiders, 80% of them were daddy longlegs… but to the spider hater, just as terrifying.) 

But it wasn’t just spiders. I would soon come to find that each day brought a new “bête”: spiders, earwigs, ants, bees… it never stopped.

The worst was when they got on you. That was a fun game. Looking at people and seeing a huge spider on the them and then helping them get it off. Feeling them on you. Coming home at the end of the day with bites on your legs even though you were wearing leggings, pants and socks because somehow they crawled in... ahhh!

2.     Boring – My brain is always spinning, I constantly am doing four things at one time.. literally. And now I was sitting in front of a bush, with tons of leaves, searching for fruit, cutting it, putting it in my bucket and then getting up and moving to the next vine. Yep, eight hours a day.

3.     Bend & Back – So after said 15 minutes, it became really obvious how this was going to become painful. You are doing the same motions constantly. Either you are kneeling to get a good view of the vine to see and find the grapes clearly, squatting to move from vine to vine, bending over the vine to reach some grapes hidden in the back, bending in front of the vine looking for grapes to give your knees a break, lifting a heavy bucket of grapes over your head to dump into the porteur’s basket.

But it wasn't all bad!

Let’s just say I thought that the  “rangs” would never end. I had literally no idea how I was going to do 10-13 days of this. I never quit and I was seriously considering quitting after that first hour.

But I didn’t and kept going. Those first two days were long, so long they felt like a month. But they wore on and as miserable as it was, it was incredible!

Who gets to do this?! I was sitting in a vineyard in Bordeaux, eating Merlot grapes right off the vine! AMAZING! The scenery is stunning, the people are nice, it’s outside and sunny. So I kept going.

But man, were we a sight to see. Our boss would point us to a field, she’d line us up, say go, and we’d attack. We were like ants on cake.

Let’s insert a sidenote here. I am terrible at harvesting grapes. You would think that it’s easy and it can be, but it is truly all about technique! I was literally going as fast as I possibly could and was still last or close to last. Thank God for the Turks who always helped me finish my rang!

We started with the Merlot parcels, then moved on to Petit Verdot (a lesser known cépage or grape varietal from the region) and then moved on to Cabernet Franc and finally Cabernet Sauvignon.

The idea is to work as quickly as possible because the window between ripe and rotten is really really small, and if it rains, all bets are off. Because of this, we worked six days a week, 8h00 - 12h30, a break for lunch, we are in France of course! and then again 14h00 - 18h30. Thank God for the Sabbath!

The days were long days. We’d come home, shower, have apéro (French cocktails), dinner, and then literally go directly to sleep! Eight hours a night was not enough.

The weather was incredible and really held out until about day nine. Then the skies opened up and poured. Wet, everything was wet, we moved so much slower, it was cold… really not ideal, but I was excited and thankful to have the chance to experience it all!

As mentioned, the harvest was predicted to be between 10 and 13 days. As we got closer to the end, it was totally bittersweet. I was so excited to be done and at the same time sad to stop an opportunity that I probably will never repeat again!

In the end we ended up doing 12 days. All this to say, the 2015 Vintage of Chateau Chasse Spleen is going to be awesome! Look for it in 2017... I'am going to buy a case and drink up all my hard labor.

Here's a gallery of all the pictures!