Sunday, September 23, 2012

Back To The Past....

I was just notified that the vendange 2012 at Chateau Vieux Chevrol will officially start at 8 am on Thursday morning. I have to leave Wednesday afternoon and take the train to Libourne. This should be quite interesting. It will be my 10th year working for Vieux Chevrol. Vieux Chevrol is a 22 hectare family owned vineyard which produces a classic Lalande Pomerol wine. The Champseix family takes pride in  using traditional methods. Almost all operations are done by hand. It's been a difficult year. The vines were damaged because of the rather warm winter, followed by a record breaking severe cold snap in the spring. They had already started to bud and develop flowers when the freeze hit. The summer has been a roller coaster of record heat and cold...but no real rain. Today, for example, it was almost 90 degrees here and tomorrow? Perhaps 70. And it looks like it will finally start to rain. So I get to work in medieval splendor for perhaps 2 weeks. The video is me doing what I do 8 hours a day...that's me, Microdot, the best American Grape Porteur in France! If you listen hard enough, you get to hear me Parler Francais....I would like to remind all my friends who read this blog that the Group Coordination Aude Mali project is still an ongoing reality. Now more than ever, we need donations to get innocent people out of harms way and into the camps now established in Mauritania and Burkina Faso. If you donate any amount using the paypal button on the side of the blog, it will go to transportation and basic survival needs for the Touareg tribal people that GCAM has been working with for over 25 years. I will do an update on the situation before I leave on Wednesday.

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