Bearing Fruit, Steamboat Magazine, Summer/Fall 2007
Two Americans cross cultural barriers during France´s fall grape harvest.
The gravel drills through my grape-stained jeans and into my knees as I crouch on the swath of rocks separating my row from the neighboring vines. I´m wrangling with a squatty, intractable old specimen, my hands groping blindly inside its tangle of leaves in search of the grapes I´m here to pick.
I´m wielding a serpette, the miniature scythe traditionally used to cut clusters from the vines, but the snarl´s too dense for me to see where I´m aiming. So I´ve learned to search less by sight than by feel, enduring the bite of tough twigs snagging my fingers until I finally discover the soft, sun-warmed fruit that jiggles in my palm like a tiny water balloon. I slice the stem with my serpette, toss the bunch into my bucket, and glance around--not to admire the rolling hills of the French Beaujolais swelling around me, but to measure the pace of the other pickers. I want to make sure I´m not falling behind.
It´s a race, you see, with each picker competing to be the first to reach row´s end. My husband and I are the only Americans on this all-French team, and we quickly understand that beating us to the end wasn´t about picking faster than Kelly and Ben: It was about defeating les Américains.
We weren´t expecting a contest for world supremacy when we signed on to work the wine grape harvest in France: We came ready to party. As a college student in Lyon, I´d heard tales of the vendange, a French tradition of harvesting wine grapes amidst Dionysian revelry, and ever since then, I´d dreamed of doing it myself. Sure, it´s hard work. Everyone admitted that. But they also described a ten-day celebration of legendary proportions, where farmhouse French food and wine-soaked merriment appeased aching muscles and united pickers in a rowdy camaraderie.
We can pick grapes, Ben and I told ourselves. After all, we´re hearty Coloradoans who climb high peaks. So I wrote a letter to Chateau Thivin, in the little French town of Brouilly, and begged for the opportunity to abuse our backs. If the hard work was amply rewarded with epicurean pleasures, who could complain?
Claude Geoffray, for one. The chateau patron wasn´t amused that his indulgent wife had welcomed a couple of illegal American workers into his vineyards. So he shadows me up my row, rifling through the vines I picked until he seizes upon a cluster I´d missed. "You see this," he asks, waving the moldy grapes before my eyes. "You can´t be careless like this. Every bunch must be picked," he chides before dumping the fruit in my bucket and striding away. So I linger a little longer at each vine after, making sure to snip even the moldy grapes, but later that day I feel Claude´s shadow over me once more. He holds another grape cluster in his hand, only this time he´d yanked the moldy bunch from my bucket. "You see this?" he asks again. "I don´t want this garbage in my wine." He tosses it to the ground, and as I watch the grapes dissolve into the dirt I scan my brain for the French expression for, "damned if you do, damned if you don´t."
When my bucket is full with Claude-certified fruit, I call for Dominique, the porteur who carries a big hopper on his back. The porteur´s work is even harder than ours, since he has to collect pickers´ fruit and deliver it over steep, uneven terrain to the grape truck. That truck collects fruit but emits noise: It´s like a grandstand for Manuel, a portly little Portugese man who needs no amplifier to broadcast his gravelly curses and jokes. Manuel´s job is to manage the porteurs, but mostly he shouts at us pickers, alternately abusing and entertaining.
So it´s a relief when Claude calls it a day, and we stagger into the pickups that haul us to dinner. There´s a happy buzz as workers crowd around red-checkered tablecloths to devour great food and wine: thyme-scented roast pork, sumptuous rabbit stew, scalloped potatoes, plum tart, and gallons of Chateau Thivin´s excellent red Beaujolais that dims not only the pain in our backs, but also the inhibitions about accepting les Américains into the fold. Then, after dinner we spill outside into the courtyard to sing wacky French folk songs beneath the stars. Someone pulls out some bongos and Ben, who speaks no French but can drum to beat the band, suddenly finds a language with rhythms we can all stomp to.
That´s when we stopped hearing les Américains and became Kelly and Ben, names that never sounded so good to us as they did when they emerged--oddly accented--from the mouths of our new friends. In the vineyards, the mad race for the finish line fizzled once we all stopped keeping score. And after 12 days of picking, Claude appears in the courtyard where Ben and I are savoring our last night at Chateau Thivin. This time he holds a cat that purrs as he strokes its long, orange fur. We wait for Claude´s message, but he says nothing, just smiles softly and nods in rhythm with his hands. Music and food may cross cultural barriers, but hard work--though less festive--proves no less effective.
IF YOU GO
Where:
Mid-September through early October, the grape harvest ignites a festive atmosphere in all French winemaking regions, from Alsace to Bordeaux. Fly into Paris, then board a train to wine country.
How:
Americans are illegal workers in France--regulations reserve picking jobs for European Union citizens--so don´t expect to formalize your status. Visit www.anpe.fr to browse online job listings (in French), search the "help wanted" notices posted at wine regions´ train platforms, or just wait there until work presents itself: Winery representatives often sweep local stations for willing recruits. Expect room and board to be part or all of your compensation. Some French cooking schools and harvest-time wine tours also include a half-day in the vines.
Need to know:
The French are rarely fond of indulging tongue-tied Americans, so some fluency in French is essential. Pack a sun hat, work clothes and gloves, and your favorite balm for soothing sore muscles.
