Welcome

We are a retired American couple living in France, enjoying the good life with our cats. Our house is in a small hamlet among the Ste. Foy vines. We also have a sailboat that the male half of the spousal unit sailed across the Atlantic in the summer of 08. When the weather warms we will start to visit the sailing ports of Europe. Our stories chronicle our life in France: the good life, the hard life, and the sailing life.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Fete de Vendange







This morning more than 20 of us gathered to celebrate the harvest with our neighbors who have the winery across the street. Most years they invite friends who travel from across France to spend a morning harvesting grapes by hand and then eat, drink, sing, and play silly games the rest of the day and night.

Most years we harvest white grapes which are used to make their sparkling (methode champenoise) wine. By law a portion of the grapes used for that wine must be harvested by hand. However, this year we are harvesting red grapes, just to maintain the tradition.

This is how the day began.

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