Thursday, September 28, 2006

Le Vendage

The smell of fresh grape juice is in the air as I walk by the vineyard on the way to the post. The vendage has begun. Men with trapezoid-shaped, backpack-like white plastic pails from the top of their heads to their thighs with leather straps over their shoulders pick the fruit. The pails are empties into the large metal barrels on flat-bed trucks parked between the rows.

This year I won’t have time to go to the Canton of Valais for Brazili (I am not sure of the spelling). Restaurants near the vineyards serve roasted chestnuts, apples and the first pressings of the grapes. Still, it is enough to watch the men move among the vines as has been done for centuries, only long ago the pails were made of branches.

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