Harvesting grapes

Last saturday I went to my English friend's to help him harvesting grapes. He has got a few raws of vine plants : a mix of white, "grey" and black grapevine plants. These are unknown vines, which were only given numbers.

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In the tiny vineyard.

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A mix of "grey (pinkish)" (in the left) and black (more blue) grapes.

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Grey grapes in the sun. Actually, raisins have a pinkish colour, which does not show on this photo.

I tasted some of these raisins and they have a great taste : very sweet and sugary.

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Can you see the difference of colour between the "white"grapes and the "grey (pink)" grapes?

The grey ones are in the middle of the basket.

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A mix of the three colours.

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All what we harvested in almost three hours (we were three to work).

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At the end of the day, our friend's neighbour, who is a farmer and also harvested his grapes that sunday, joined us with a few other people to press the grapes.

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He went with his own wine press but we finally used my friend's as he has got his own. The farmer only has got two very small vineyards and kept doing his wine like the ancients. So the method I will describe is the ancient one. Very few people still use it.

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The wine press is put on top of a big barrel. Some people have to handle the wine press itself : if not it would fall. Someone is turning the wheel, which requires quite a lot of strenght. Someone else fill the wine press with grapes.

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My friend and I did separate mannually some of the grapes from their stems to try to obtain a sweeter taste of the wine.

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Wine press installed on the barrel.

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The farmer posing with pride.

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Pressing, pressing.

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Inside the barrel.

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Collecting grape juice.

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Adding some sugar in the grape juice.

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Transferring the grape juice inside the vat.

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We did well : a little less than 50 litres.

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Now, its has to ferment. Hopefully, we will manage to get some correct rosé.

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To make red wine, it is more complex. Juice must not be separated from the must. The must has to be pressed a little bit everyday for some time. Looks quite tricky.

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