Roses and Rosé

So remember those roses I wrote of last time?  Well, I thought I had seen the last of them, but alas, it was not to be.  The previous work on them involved reclaiming the roses from a field of grass, prickers and weeds.  In order for them to be finished, Bernard informed me that I needed to weed in between all of them as well.  Now, these bushes are planted rather close together in 10 or 12 patches.  Weeding around them meant sitting on the ground (amongst and on the prickers) and slowly working my way around each patch, reaching into the recesses of the plants in order to get every last weed.  My arms currently look like Bruce Willis' by the end of 'Die Hard' - totally shredded.  I sure hope that all of the people who come to stay in the rooms and attend the Jazz concerts appreciate them!

After several additional days in the roses, I got a lucky break.  Bertrand needed help in the cellar with the wines.  It turns out that two huge vats of wine - a white and a rosé - had some issues.  They were from the 2007 harvest, but had become oxidized ("older whites may brown...").  So we took a powdered chemical called PVPP and added it to the vats.  Now let me tell you, adding powder to several hundred gallons of wine is quite a trick.  First you fill a smaller container with about 20 gallons of the wine (and always start with the white, so you don't get any added color!) and add the PVPP.  Let it sit for 20 minutes and then use a gigantic pump to suck it into the vat.  Now, put one hose over the top of the vat and one on the lower outlet and proceed to pump all of the wine through in order to mix it up.  Once finished, repeat with the rosé.  The rosé also got a treatment of something which was mainly compsed of dried out fish.  I'm not sure what its purpose was.  I guess all wines here aren't "non-interventionist"!

On Saturday, the Chateau is hosting a Jazz concert with wine and small plates.  I've been working to power wash and oil the terrace, in addition to sweeping cobwebs from the reception room (which is right off of the celler...easy access).  Also on Saturday, I will be joined by 2 new WWOOFers - a couple.  He's from Scotland and she's from Denmark.  It should add a whole new level of craziness to the accents and speech around here.  Barnard has a hard time understanding an American accent, but he says a Scottish accent is even harder.  Maybe we'll all end up speaking Danish.

A bientot!