One of the requirements of my oenology studies in France is a three-month winemaking internship. I chose to do mine with Didier Barral, a Languedoc winemaker who I’ve written about several times before on this blog. With his cows roaming freely in the vineyard, close to 50 pigs free-ranging nearby, and a beyond-biodynamic biodiversity philosophy, Barral makes a vin de terroir that is alive with the spiciness of the garrigue scrub-brush and minerality of the shale that characterize Faugères region wines. This third segment of my winemaking report deals with sorting the grapes before they are placed in the fermentation tanks.
'OK, everyone together now: 'With a quack, quack here, and a..."
Making wine with little or no added sulfur is difficult. Sulfites are added to wine to kill the bacteria that battle yeast for the grape’s sugar. Without intervention by man, the natural destination for grape juice is vinegar, and removing the main weapon in this effort—sulfur, leaves mostly techniques such as pasteurization or filtration that are verboten for winemakers seeking to express the full potential of their grapes and soil.
Thwarting the acetic bacteria that can make the difference between fine wine and one of the principal ingredients of salad dressing begins with handpicked, clean, healthy grapes that are ripe, but not overripe. These are placed by the grape-pickers in plastic bins that protect them from being crushed, which would expose their juice to air and bacteria.
Harvesting is done in the cool, early morning hours so that the sun’s heat will not set off any premature fermentation caused by the naturally present yeast on their skins combining with any sugary juice that might have seeped out of the grapes. The 30kg bins are hauled on trailers to the wine cellar where the grapes will be sorted on stainless-steel tables. These tables are inclined, with the grapes being passed along their length under the watchful eyes of the sorters.
'Just imagine where I'd have ended up if these grapes had been machine-harvested and unsorted...'
Before they fall by gravity into the fermentation vat, less-than-perfect grapes, insects, leaves, stems, snails and the occasional lizard are removed. The sorting tables at the Domaine Léon Barral have a definite international flavor, with French, Portuguese, English, Czech and Japanese being spoken around them.
Like any assembly line where people work hour-after-hour at a repetitious task, world problems are discussed (and resolved, at least in the minds of those present), gossip is exchanged, and you get to know a little something about each other.
Thankfully, some of the sorters had been blessed with some singing ability so the long hours of sorting were sometimes brightened by melodic interludes. It was the Portuguese, perhaps because agricultural tasks are more a part of their recent past, who had the greatest repertoire of rhythmic work songs. But the universality of music allowed all of us to join in, at some point, on the most astounding a cappella version of “Old Macdonald had a farm” ever heard, with cow, pig and horse sounds in French, Portuguese, English, Japanese and Czech. The fact that children spend all too much time in front of televisions was also demonstrated, as we heard the Pokemon theme song sung in English, Portuguese and, best of all, in its original Japanese.
Everything other than the lizards goes to the pigs. Now, that's organic.
As mind-numbing as sorting grapes for 10 or 12-hour stints can be, the camaraderie of working and suffering together, and knowing that we were contributing—in a small way, to making one of the Languedoc region’s finest wines made it worth the effort.
Nothing to do with sorting grapes, but it's interesting to see white, grey and black Carignan grapes together.
