Sunday, September 27, 2009

Waiting for ... (16)

 


All week there was a buzzing of activity around the house: all the neighbours winemakers started to harvest the red wine grapes under a lovely sun - harvesting at 26 ° !! Some photo impressions:

* gathering of the grapes with machines :







* it is incredible how these machines by mere vibration manage to do a very proper job and collect almost 100% of the grapes :

   - before passing



   - after gathering



- when the grapes arrive at the chai (wine-cellar) they go through an égrappoir (crusher / de-stemmer), which takes the stalks off and breaks the grape skins, then into a pompe à marc (grape pump) which pumps them into the cuve (fermentation tank).








It is at times really a beautiful sight in the vineyards: autumnly colours and ripe grapes.




This week in the series 'popular dishes' : one of the all time favourites as entree, especially by hot weather : salmon cottage cheese mousse with red, yellow and green peppers.




Nature photo of the week : a praying mantis ('mante religieuse') doing some acrobatics on the laundry rack.



 

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