Some of crop waiting to be destemmed I've only seen grapes destemmed by hand once before – normally this is done by a destemming machine. This was in Thesée at Les Bois Lucas owned by Junko Arai, who has a wine importing company and a wine school in Japan. She had bought some vineyards in Mareuil-sur-Cher from Didier and Catherine of the Clos Roche Blanche. Then I was a spectator this time I was one of the team stripping the grapes from their stalks, while rejecting those that weren't good enough for the grand cuvée – mainly because they were too pink.
As you can imagine destemming took considerably longer than the picking – around an hour and half against a maximum of 45 minutes to pick.
Mark leads the way....
"What am I supposed to do with this stalk, then?"
Naturally there were many jokes about child labour........
Flying hands................. 
All finished – entire crop of 'grand cru' Cabernet Franc 2009 – now time for lunch!
Not forgetting la raflé (the stalks)•
'After lunch, and so as to make use of the helping hands, the Cabernet grapes were trod (by Fabienne and Lydia), the 2008 Cabernet/Côt was bottled and the 2009 Côt taken off the skins and lightly pressed.Report on the after lunch work from Mark
(photos supplied by Mark)
(photos supplied by Mark)
Foot-treading the Cabernet Franc: Fabrienne (above), Lydia (below)
A very enjoyable day and the team are keen for a repeat next year. The bottling, at least, will take much longer!'
Hi-tech bottling line
