First Day At Work

I'm working at a very small boutique vineyard in a hamlet called Cabidos.

The estate is only a 15 minute drive from where I'm staying and Minette drove me and we arrived at around half past nine.

The vineyard is run by the de Nazelle family who have a stake in Veuve Cliquot champagne.

Vivien de Nazelle is the proprietor of the vineyard and his mother, la Comtesse de Nazelle lives on the estate.

However, the actual winemaker is a Thai lady named Meo.

My first task was to help Meo collect wine samples from all the oak barrels in the cellar. Firstly, we labelled bottles with the unique number of each barrel. Then, we used a large pipette to collect the wine samples and transfer them to the bottle. The reason for collecting these samples is that the wine was to be analysed in a laboratory in order to find out the exact chemical composition of each wine.

Next, I had to transfer wine from one vat to another using a pump and then clean the vats.

I brought some duck confit with lentils for lunch which I heated up in the microwave. It was very tasty and very filling!

Unfortunately, I didn't actually go to the vines themselves but the work was interesting nevertheless!