Picking Grapes in Alsace

I went to a book party last night and drank too much chardonnay, so I'm showing my grape picking ventures today...

October harvest in Riquewihr, Alsace, is one of the most beautiful anywhere. I got to stand on a hill and sling a pair of shears for few hours. My 'payment' - to sit at the long vineyard table and share a huge luscious lunch. Alsatian grape picking is a family affair. Every member shows up to help with les vendanges.

At Regaleali Vineyard in Sicily I just watched. The pickers sang, chatted, smoked, picked grapes in the most leisurely fashion. You can take cooking lessons here with Countess Anna Tasca-Lanza.

Tuscan vineyards are almost as beautiful as Alsace.

Napa Valley grape pickers don't walk.They race to get the job done.

In Burgundy they used to carry straw baskets/paniers on their backs. You'll find these at Fr. ebay. You'll find all kinds of wine-related goodies on ebay.fr. I should know. I used to spend hours and $ looking for still life objects and I've got a closet full of taste-vins to prove it!

19th century Bordeaux pickers...

Figures are more fun to draw than grapes...

I'm better at wielding a paintbrush than grape shears/secateurs. Some passerby on the Bordeaux La Route du vin insisted on taking my picture back in the day when I haunted the vineyards.

Lordie...

Fete de la Fleur, Bordeaux

Every 2 years a huge international wine exposition takes place in Bordeaux

VINEXPO

The crowning event at the end of the expo is a grande soiree,
La Fete de la Fleur

Only the creme de la creme in the wine trade attend:

chateau owners, distributors, celebrities etc.

Each year it's held at a different grand chateau in the Medoc..
The year I went, it was at the lovely Chateau Cantenac-Brown.
I wrangled an invite by suggesting I should take photographs

for Wine Enthusiast magazine. A tradition at the Fete is the prestigious awarding of new memberships intoLe Commanderie du Bon temps du MedocNew and old members get to parade about in claret red velvet robes..

Hugh Grant was a recipient, but alas, I did not get his picture. Here are the St. Emilion Bon Temps members parading.After Champagne and hors d'oeuvre on the grounds

there's a grand dinner inside. In 1997 it was held inside a tent in case of rain. Between courses there was Cirque du Soleil-style entertainment. Performers on stilts dressed up as Bon temps members paraded.

Acrobats decked out as corks flew through the air to keep us amused.

I did this party doodle after the Fete.

The dinner menu served was quite simple - just 5 courses.
After all there were 1500 guests attending!
But I was amazed to see the cheese course/fromages served to each guest individually by special cheese servers, rather than 6 cheese chunks sitting on a plate.
The piece de resistance was of course, the wine menu shown here.
13 wines served to go with the 5 courses!
I noticed while sitting at the Wine Enthusiast table,

quite a bit of tipping of the waiter to get very large glasses refilled

with some of the world's finest wines.

Hmmmm...
Here is the sad secret that has kept me from following in Ms. P. Hilton's footsteps. My alcoholic capacity is about 2 THIMBLES FULL.

THAT IS IT!

Anymore than my quota, say 3 thimbles full

and I am known to become dangerously flagrant or fall asleep a table.

Plus I suffer massive hangovers.

So I did not get to leave the soiree drunk and disorderly.

But I did get a very nice claret red umbrella (it started to rain)

with the insignia of Le Bon Temps Commanderie on it!

And the truly amazing fact is

I still have this umbrella 10 years later!

My Wine Cards

This is about painting la vigne (vineyards) and my wine cards. Painting vineyards isn't as easy as painting a gondola which is a glorified canoe with fancy trimmings. When I painted chateaux for S-L's catalog..well most sit in a vineyard that is a mass of green. Greens can be assertive, and like a dog pulling on a leash, they want attention. They need to be tamed with a touch of red to make them behave. "Heel Green! Heel, I say!" Doing a closeup of a vineyard is a lot easier. For one thing there are some grapes to add to that annoying mass of green.And grape leaves, can be challanging and are another repetitive pattern but at least they're fun shapes to draw.I liked drawing figures (i.e. grape pickers ) before I took up with cups of hot chocolate. So I put plenty of figures in as a distraction. You get Pinot Noir grapes in Champagne too.So much for my struggles painting vineyards. You can buy a 10-pack of 5 different vineyard images, tied with a purple ribbon from me directly. The gift card pack sells for $11.95 + $2.00 shipping, totaling $13.95. ONLY U.S. sales at this time. You can contact me HERE . Merci

Wine Tasting 101

This is going to be a very sketchy intro to wine tasting, no pun intended. I'm writing this off the cuff, since I forgot to spit yesterday (more about that later) and I didn't drink the requisite glasses of water required between tastings.. In otherwards I was a bad and I'm a bit hung over today. Hmmm... German Rieslings are just too damn delicious in my opinion and I'm a complete sucker for sweet wines anyway. Lord knows how I did that painting this morning? I fell dead asleep when I got home and missed watercolor class last night :(
After they've let you into the tasting, take a good look around at the scene. A whole lot of chatting goin' on. It doesn't hurt to review your Riesling notes or whatever wine you are tasting before you go. It's always nice to make intelligent conversation with the winemaker or owner pouring, as in:
~
What grape varieties are in this wine? or What percentage of alcohol or sugar etc? How was the harvest this year? Get ready for the full weather report BTW. The point is, you do not run up to the table, shove your glass in, get a slug and then run off. At least pretend to be interested!

First things first. Go and get a fresh glass. This will be your glass for the event. It's specially sized for that particular wine type. Some events they let you take them home. I have quite a collection of odd sizes... OK, you're at a wine table. Take a look down. There will be a ton of information to help you out. Wine notes or fact sheets on each wine, so you'll know what to expect in terms of flavors, vintage, ratings, etc. Like clip notes, they'll help you out in the conversation area.
Maps are big in the wine world. The chocolate world needs maps too. Heck! I love maps of anything...You're ready to begin. Start with the left-hand bottle. Usually you'll taste from dry to sweet and there's also a price factor involved. Lesser to more expensive. It's polite to do the whole range rather than rushing to the most expensive wine first thing. It will give you a better picture of that particular vineyard.
With Rieslings, you start with the dry light Kabinett (pronounced like "kitchen cabinet" I was told yesterday :) You'll work through the Spatlese and Auslese, getting to the Eiswein if they have it and you're lucky.
Mind you, this process is repeated and repeated over again. This is where the spit buckets come in and the pitchers of water. If you really want to do justice to a tasting you need to spit like a pro or learn to. A quite famous wine person revealed that she practiced for hours while in the bathtub... The water pitchers are there to clean out your glass between tastings and to cleanse your palate and to keep you vertical!
Before you take that first wonderful taste you want to check the color of the wine, usually against the note book they gave you to write your personal wine thoughts in. At least pretend to scribble something, even if you haven't a clue. It'll look good. Swirl the glass a bit without spilling. Then "nose" the wine to get it's full aromas. Yep, you put the whole nose into the glass, not just a partial sniff puleeze. With Rieslings you can expect crisp green apple, peaches, apricots, all fresh fruit, honey, black pepper aromas, on and on. They're famed for their drinkability = they go well with most cuisines and they're climbing in popularity rapidly. Try a bottle.Don't forget the nosh at tastings, usually cheesy and fruity things to clear your palate and refresh you and keep you going. If I got anything right here, it's because I took Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World Wine School a number of times. First as a volunteer cracker server. I was not allowed to pour...hmmm... I have a Spanish wine + tapis tasting next week. Hasta luego