Let me set the scene for you: about 7:30 AM, overcast sky, autumn chill in the air, steep hillside vineyard of old vine grenache noir between Maury and St. Paul.
Last night at dinner I had a lovely bottle of the 2007 Thunevin-Calvet “Les Dentelles”; this morning I’m photographing the 2011 harvest. Or, to be more precise, I’m chasing after Marie Calvet, trying to photograph her as she manages the crew, picks grapes, drives the truck and throws sticks for her dog, Boolah.
Marie and her husband, Jean-Roger run Thunevin-Calvet winery in partnership with Jean-Luc Thunevin. And Marie runs the harvest, really runs the harvest.
She has more energy than an oil company and no time to wait for the perfect photo. She’s a dynamo and it’s hard to photograph someone moving that fast in early morning light. Trudging up and sliding down the hill, bedecked with cameras and a bit of a hangover, I’m trying to keep up with her.
She has no mercy. I get to a vine and she’s finished. I focus and she ducks down for the low hanging fruit. I try to anticipate where she’ll go next and she’s off in a different direction. I turn to photograph another scene and she’s finished the row and moved down the hill. I’m getting better photos of the dog.
Finally, there’s a little rest for refreshment and I ask Marie to pose. She hates this and she can’t stand still, I get two shots and the break ends.
So we’re back at it and the sun and heat finally break through, sweatshirts come off, pants get rolled up but nothing slows down Marie. I’m starting to think I should photograph the rest of the crew and throw some sticks for the dog, but I really want something good of Marie at the harvest. I plan to follow the Calvets through the year, but the harvest is a special time and I really don’t have what I want yet. Keep pushing, if she can do it so can I. I’m encouraged when she walks past me, sighs and says “je suis fatigué”. Who knew?
Noon means lunch. I’m still not sure I have what I need but I know I’m done for the day. Marie tells me that they’ll be picking a beautiful vineyard up near Queribus next week and she’ll call and tell me when. I’ll be there.
I plan to invite Marie and Jean-Roger to dinner, but I’ll wait until after the harvest.
Thunder rolling all around the valley tonight and every time it rolls the starlings who hang out in the olive tree across the street, lose their voice and take flight.
Maury is in fact quite a bit noisier these days. There are two large home renovation projects on our street that keep the volume up from 8:30 – 5:00 except for the sacred two-hour lunch. Then at night, when the town is normally quiet, the Spanish harvest workers keep things lively with guitar music and what sound like furious arguments that always seem to end peacefully.
Harvest makes Maury feel like the center of the action, with everyone busy, intense and focused on wine. The weather becomes vital and is closely followed. Last night at the café Manu was advising some visitors to go to the beach Saturday because the winds will arrive Monday. People just know this stuff. This morning at the market, I mentioned to Thierry, the produce man that it was very quiet and asked him if it was normal for a Saturday. For a Saturday during harvest, he said. Everyone is in the vineyards. Went on to the fish truck to talk to Monica about grilling on a wood fire. She really has beautiful fresh fish including great oysters from Leucate and terrific mussels, not cheap but fair. She steered me to the salmon for grilling and how could I argue, buying two pieces, which was exactly twice as much as I needed.
There was a bit of rain but it seems to have passed, the guitars have come out and the chorus of starlings has returned.
It’s a pretty common fantasy, from wage slaves in cubicles to CEO’s in corner offices, the dream of chucking it all to buy a vineyard and make wine is pervasive and sometimes persuasive. Few can do it, but if you have enough money and are willing to risk it, you can probably find a farmer willing to take a nice profit on a piece of land. Check out the lawyers and dotcom millionaires in the Napa Valley and look up a former Swiss banker in the Agly Valley by the name of Marcel Buhler.
There may be other dreamers in the banking houses of Zurich, but Marcel actually did it. He took off the tie, left the office, and is making wine the way he wants. Good move. Good wine.
I first met Marcel in January of this year when he was pruning vines and I was looking for a story. He taught me about pruning, I made some photos.
Now it’s the beginning of September and the picking has begun, white wine first, grenache blanc, grenache gris, maccabeu and a bit of carignane blanc. Marcel and a crew of seven or eight, including his wife Carrie Sumner, are working a small hilly vineyard between Maury and St. Paul.
Picking is done in the morning, starting around 7 AM and usually finishing by lunch although Marcel has been known to push ahead, skipping lunch when he can finish a vineyard by early afternoon. He is intensely focused, listening to music and blocking out as many distractions as possible. A crew that works with minimal direction and zero friction is essential and seemed to be a reality on the days I went out with them. The workers come from around Europe – Spain, Italy, Czech Republic – and the miracle of communication through the mélange of languages and accents is very impressive. They are, as you’d expect, mostly young, pursuing the romance, sleeping in cars, living free on the road. I can remember.
The method calls for cutting away the dried out berries that retain too much sugar for the blend. Doing this in the vineyard means the picking will take a little longer, but there’s no place in the production line to make this happen. It also means he needs pickers who are experienced and careful and since these workers are transient, every year is a new ballgame.
The grapes are collected in bins known as cagettes, which are trucked to the winery. This bit is important because of what comes next.
Yep, they do it with their feet. I’m thinking isn’t this sweet and pure and terribly romantic until Marcel explained the reasons for it. In his white wines, he wants to retain some of the flavor from the stems, but not too much. Putting the whole batch in a crusher would extract more from the stems than he wants in the wine. Crushing this way does not damage the stems, thereby limiting the contribution to the final wine.
Now I know exactly what you’re thinking, what does that feel like? Well, that’s exactly why I had to try it.
First off the grapes are warm, they’ve just come in from a very hot vineyard, and they’re tough. Those little maccabeu guys are meaty and slippery and it takes a while to get them crushed, big feet are a definite advantage in this business. Unlike dancing, it’s OK to look at your feet while doing this and it’s a good idea because as the juice increases, the berries become more mobile and harder to trap. Finally, there’s a lot of sugar in there, so it gets a bit sticky. This is definitely not the sensual experience of a lifetime and the main attraction for the workers just may be getting to take your shoes off and wash your feet after a morning in the vineyards.
From the feet to the press where the juice that flows free is pumped over the must several times before being pumped into a chilled plastic storage tank where it is left to rest and for the impurities to settle out. Temperature is kept below the point where fermentation can occur. Once the impurities have settled to the bottom, the juice is racked out to barrels for fermentation. Natural yeast, no filtering or fining.
It’s important to remember that this is an outline of Marcel’s methods; along the way he will make decisions based on testing, tasting and the kind of wine he wants to make. Others will do it differently, with different goals in mind, different resources, or simply because that’s the way they learned to make wine. I’ll look at a couple of different approaches in this blog and we’ll check back in with Marcel at different stages of the process.
The first phone call was a masterpiece of miscommunication, speaking French is harder for me on the phone and Georges, who has spent all of his 79 years in Rasiguères, has that southern accent that seems to mix in a bit of Catalan and a dash of Occitan. It was a struggle, but we managed to agree on Saturday morning at 9:00 in front of the Mairie in Rasiguères.
The first thing Georges did was take me over to the coop to taste some of the local wines and, as always happens, when I taste I buy. He did, however, secure a 20% discount for me, which he was very happy to point out. Business accomplished, we went out to a small syrah vineyard where Georges introduced me to his son, grandson, granddaughter and the rest of the pickers. Turned out the grandson was on the Domaine Pertuisane crew I had photographed and he wanted to know if I had any good photos of his girlfriend who was also there.
In this method of harvesting, the pickers drop the grapes in buckets which are the dumped into la hotte, the plastic bin carried by one of the workers. When full, he dumps the load into a truck, which is unloaded directly into the crusher at the coop.
When the picking was finished for the day, Georges invited me back to his house for something to drink. He seemed pleased when I accepted a glass of sweet wine and we made our way as best we could through a conversation in which he explained how the wine had been stored in oak, giving it a characteristic brown color. When I told him I liked it very much, Georges went out to the garage, drew a bottle from the barrel and sent me on my way with a bonne journée.
Like many great cities, Perpignan provides a lovely public space that serves as meeting place, living room, market and cafe for many people. The market is there most mornings and the square is surrounded by good food shops and cafes. Think of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid or the Piazza San Marco in Venice, now scale it down in size, number of tourists and architectural ambition and you have the Republique in Perpignan, a place appropriate to its setting.
Now take a look at the place in the evening during Visa Pour L’Image:
This is one night in a week of presentations and this is the overflow audience, those who couldn’t get in to the program at the Campo Santo. They’ve filled the plaza to watch the video broadcast of the presentation of the year’s best photojournalism. It’s astonishing to see a crowd like this paying attention to the images and paying homage to those journalists who risk everything to tell a story. I’m in awe of them and very fond of this city that welcomes and honors them.
Incredible Images, great storytelling, courage, a commitment to telling the truth, as we democratize the news and encourage citizen reporting, it’s important to remember the value of professionalism.
I haven’t written recently but I have been busy. I managed to open a bank account although I’m not allowed to have checks because I don’t have a salary. I can, however have a debit card so that should suffice. I bought a car – 1997 Renault Twingo – insured it and even, in a clear victory over the forces of bureaucracy, managed to register it.
So now it’s time to get to work, starting with evening walks in the vineyards. I wanted to revisit sites I had photographed in January just to set the scene and because I think the land and a connection to it is a key element of this story.
This is Marcel Buhler’s vineyard in January, looking like an open-air witches’ graveyard:
Sorry, took a short break there to get a glass of wine.
These are Marcel’s vineyards and he is one of the people who represents the changes going on here, in wine and, as a result, in the society as a whole. He is Swiss and came here to make wine. Why are people coming here to make wine and what results from that? Why here and now? There’s a glut of wine, who needs more? What happens to the economy of a rural village? How does it affect the society beyond those involved in wine? And what creates the passion? Because this is backbreaking work and the rewards are uncertain.
OK, I’m going to try to answer these questions by talking to Marcel and others, some new to the area, some who have always been here. I’m going to try to capture portraits of the people and the village in photos and words, but keep an eye on the land. It’s old and tough and difficult to work. It’s beauty is hard, not seductive like a Caribbean beach or a Hawaiian sunset, but it’s always part of the picture.
You can’t hop off a plane right into a new life, at least not during baseball season. So, It’s good to know that Giants’ blackout territory does not extend to Maury, local radio doesn’t have the scores and the Chronicle is not on my doorstep. In other words, it’s new to me. MLB-TV, coffee and a fresh baguette (finished before the photo) work fine for me.
Besides, French culture isn’t all that quick to adopt me: I went to the bank in St. Paul today to open a new account and was told I could have a rendez-vous with Mlle. Borette next Tuesday to discuss the matter. I’m looking forward to it.
I know I’m veering dangerously into Peter Mayle territory here, but it’s hard to avoid and if it sells a few books, why complain, or rather, why not?
Sunday, the last day we had together, Barbara and I went walking in the Presidio to see the new Andy Goldsworthy piece. What a joy! I was, as I’ve been for the last month, obsessing over details, anxious, living inside my head and maybe a bit removed from reality. Andy Goldsworthy is a great artist. He not only brings you out of your head, he brings you into the natural world through a work of art that shows us the connections we may not see when self-obsessed and not very perceptive.
OK. Sorry about the iPhone photo, but as I said, I was not thinking. Not thinking clearly and not getting outside my own brain cells. But this piece turned me around, made me look around and made me happy. This made everything else go away. Made me love where I was at that moment and made me happy. So here’s a challenge to the photographers out there. Get to the presidio, spend some time with Goldsworthy and, if he moves you, make an image. I really want to see it.
So I’m launched on a farewell tour, friends and places that I love, doing things that may not happen again, but no guarantees.
Today was lunch with Larry. Now this is undoubtedly not the last time we’ll lunch together because Larry and Mary Ann are partners in the Maury house and we’ll not only eat together in France, but I suspect they’ll show up again in this blog. But Larry and I meet often for lunch and not infrequently in North Beach as we did today and I’ll miss these times.
The lunch menu at Capp’s Corner… today. The food is good and it fits our budget. It also works for Jerry Brown. Our famously thrifty governor was also lunching at Capp’s today, with friends, without an entourage. The last time we ran into the governor was a few weeks ago at Tommaso’s, San Francisco’s best pizzeria. So I’m thinking the Governor and I share a taste for good Italian food in an unpretentious setting, which may explain why I always find voting for him to be a very satisfying experience.
The first time I met Governor Brown was in 1976. He was in his first term and I was shooting for Time Magazine.
Now he’s back in office, trying to make sense of a political system gone haywire. Good luck Governor, I wish you well.
Enough politics, Larry and I went on to the North Star and Comstock and discussions of Brooklyns, Manhattans and aged Rivesaltes. Diversity is truly a wonderful thing.
The idea of moving to France goes back to the first time I landed there on a rainy night, not much money and no clue where to go. A friend and I had been on the road for a while and decided we needed a hotel for the night. Wandering empty streets, looking for a hotel or someone to ask, we see a driver pulling into a rare parking space and stop him to ask for directions. Putting the lie to every cliche about rude Parisians and giving up his parking space, he takes us to a nearby and very cheap hotel and thereby creates a bond with the country and the people that has only grown over the years.
Many visits and French lessons later I was in a management training program, playing games and doing exercises designed to move me up the ladder. We needed to select a goal and chart out the steps to get there; my goal was to own a house in France within five years and all my necessary steps added up to the height of the Eiffel Tower.
But things happen and some things you make happen.
Prospective partners appeared, web searches pinpointed affordable areas and turned up a real estate agent, one town led to another, and the right house came on the market. Finally, George Bush was reinstalled in the White House and I wanted to be sure there was somewhere else to go. We bought the house.
Lunch on the Terrace
Maury is in the southeast corner of France, in a valley between the Pyrenees and the Corbieres mountains. It’s close to the Mediterranean and the Spanish border about three hours north of Barcelona. It is French Catalunya. Wine grows here and not much else and wine is the major source of income in the region. This blog will look at regional societal changes caused by globalization in the wine industry and generational changes in wine producing families.
