Tag: bottling

On the Line

 

Spent a day on the bottling line at Domaine des Enfants this week and decided to go back to being a photographer.

If you’ve ever thought “I’m going to go off and buy some vineyards and make wine”, try a day of bottling first. It’s a sure-fire cure for romantic fantasy disease.

But sometimes friendship wins out and Marcel thought he needed another pair of hands so I volunteered.

 

Today’s Starting Lineup

brought to you by Domaine des Enfants:

 “When the kids get you down, reach for another bottle.”

 

Georges                           Bottles

Bernard                           Forklift

Tito                                  Stacking

Sabrina and Delphine    Boxes

Marcel and Carrie         Filling Boxes

Scherl                            Capsules

 

Georges on Bottles ©2012 Ron Scherl
Bernard on Forklift ©2012 Ron Scherl

“I started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff”, B. Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, actually I started on capsules which sounds like a drug confession but isn’t. After the bottles are filled and corked by machine, a capsule is placed over the top before moving on for sealing. Sounds simple, here are the details: the capsules are a very thin plastic that is easily crushed. Once crushed, they are useless, and they come nested in a row of about 50 and tend to stick together out of the box. It takes a gentle hand to separate them without crushing and the meat on the ends of my arms is not the perfect instrument. Now the bottles are moving by at a rate that’s approximately twice as fast as I’d like to see, I can keep up until I reach the end of a stack when the crinkles in the last few and the motion of picking up a new stack and loosening them gets me behind. I’m thinking soon I’ll get into the rhythm of this, it will become automatic, a meditative experience. Didn’t happen. Marcel decides I’d be better suited to another task and sends me off to help Sabrina make boxes, replacing me with Delphine.

Tito on Stacking ©2012 Ron Scherl
Sabrina on Boxes ©2012 Ron Scherl

Sabrina assigned me to check off the varietal on the outside of the carton and write “10” next to it to signify the vintage. There’s no reason to think of this as a demotion, I prefer to think that Sabrina was falling a bit behind and Marcel, knowing of my literary skills thought I’d be perfect for the job. But Sabrina, being the trusted employee she is, was way ahead and wondering what I was doing there. So after checking the right box and writing 10 about 100 times, without error I might add, I was sent back to capsules to back up Delphine.

Delphine on Capsules ©2012 Ron Scherl

Now Delphine was clearly faster than I was – she has smaller fingers – but every once in a while she’d miss one and I was there to pick her up– when suddenly our eyes met over the rhythmic motion of the bottling line and we knew – sorry, that’s a different book.

After lunch I had even less to do because the guy from the bottling service decided he liked standing next to Delphine and placing a capsule every now and then.

Marcel and Carrie on Filling Boxes ©2012 Ron Scherl

When we reached the café, I asked Marcel if he needed me tomorrow. He apologized, said he really didn’t, and bought me another drink. Seemed fair to me.

All’s Well

We’re charging into spring now with warm weather, longer days, blossoming fruit trees and life returning to the streets. The kids aren’t rushing home after school but staying in the streets a bit to play, neighbors stop to greet and say a few words about how beautiful the weather is. Thierry has flowers to plant and asparagus to eat and people stop to chat at the market. The café scene has moved to the terrace and that brings more people out for an aperitif. The 2011 rosés are appearing at the tasting rooms. The wine growers have been pruning and plowing and for some, attention now turns to bottling the 2010 vintage.

Bee at Work ©2012 Ron Scherl

I went to Thunevin-Calvet the other day to watch the bottling of the first vintage of Eugenia Keegan’s Grenache Project. Eugenia is a winemaker who used to live in the Napa Valley, now in Oregon and for years has tortured herself making pinot noir. Now she’s hung up on grenache, making wine here with Jean-Roger and Marie Calvet, and also in Chateauneuf du Pape, and soon in Spain. Winemakers are a strange and restless breed: Randall Grahm, who had great success with Rhone varietals in California (Bonny Doon) has channeled Don Quixote and gone in search of the perfect vineyard to make Burgundian pinot in California. Dave Phinney, whose Zinfandel-based Prisoner garnered huge fans, points and sales, is now in Maury making wine from grenache. Often when you talk to winemakers who have migrated here, the first thing they say is that they were looking for old vine grenache and discovered Maury.

Eugenia Keegan ©2012 Ron Scherl

Eugenia speaks of grenache, not like someone selling wine, but more like a seeker discovering the truth, it’s more religion than marketing.

So I went round to the bottling and as is often true around here found a family affair.  Jean Roger and Marie were packing cases, Roger Calvet, JR’s father was labeling them and Marie’s grandfather arrived a bit later to offer the perspective of his 90 years.

Pappi ©2012 Ron Scherl

Eugenia was nervous. I though this was just a formality, that the moments of truth were in the vineyard, at harvest and in the initial processing. But Eugenia was nervous because all that work was now on the line. She had never bottled in France before, she had never used screw caps. Mistakes made at this point could not be corrected. Professionals were in charge and everything was most likely to go well, but what if it didn’t? She was this bundle of nervous energy who only relaxed when she took a spot on the line, packing the bottles into cases. But Eugenia was in good hands. Her French family knew exactly what to do.

Roger Calvet, Jean-Roger Calvet, Eugenia Keegan ©2012 Ron Scherl

All’s well that ends well.