Monday 26 January 2009

Winter in the vineyards

Pujaut
Yes, congratulations to all, the photo in my previous post was the dried up clinging tendrils of a vine. I loved its iron colour. Sometimes you also come across a lone non-picked grape.
The deep of winter, January and February, is the time when pruning takes place in the region - a job generally done by a lone worker who day after day will patiently work his way through the vineyard with his shearing scissors, row after row. You can get very cold doing this, especially if a freezing mistral wind sweeps the plains. In the photo below, the vines have been pruned.
By the way, today 26th January is Australia Day so my thoughts are with my distant Aussie friends who are celebrating today. On of the major events of that day in Sydney is the ferry race that draws the city's focus to the harbour : see my photos of two years ago, it's quite spectacular!

Oui, bravo à vous tous, la photo de mon billet précédent était une vrille de vigne séchée. J'ai aimé sa couleur de fer. Parfois aussi il reste une grappe solitaire qui n'a pas été cueillie.
C'est au plus fort de l'hiver, en janvier et février, que l'on taille la vigne, un travail solitaire qui se fait à la main. On aperçoit parfois en passant un homme seul sur un carré de vigne, marquant patiemment son chemin au sécateur, ligne après ligne. Il peut y faire très froid, surtout lorsqu'un mistral glacial souffle sur la plaine. Dans la photo ci-dessous, les vignes ont été taillées.
Par ailleurs le 26 janvier est aussi la fête nationale australienne alors mes pensées volent vers mes amis du bout du monde qui fêtent Australia Day aujourd'hui. L'un des événements majeurs de cette journée à Sydney est la course de ferries qui draine toute l'attention de la ville vers la baie : voir ici mes photos d'il y a deux ans, c'est assez spectaculaire.

28 comments:

Linda said...

Sounds an attractive job to me - far better than sitting in front of a computer screen!
Love the detail of grape stems, down to the little plug where the grape was pulled off.

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

Great photo, but it is a cold reminder that owning a vinyard, as romantic and charming as that sounds, can be hard, agricultural work. Unless, of course, one is a "gentleman farmer" and thre are employees to do the work.

Virginia said...

I never would have guessed. Such lovely shots. Yes they look like iron. We need your fine eye to show us.
V

Anonymous said...

triste comme une mère sans ses petits.

Bergson said...

Je crois que tu vas finir par nous faire un album photo sur la vigne.

et tu aurais raison !!

Jilly said...

Lovely photos and promise for Spring. It's good to see a vineyard like this, with all the work and care needed and a reminder that Spring will soon be here and later the vino.

I looked back on your Sydney blog. The Sydney-Hobart yacht race is just marvellous. When I lived in Hobart (3 years) it was a tradition, of course, to welcome the boats in.

So Happy Australia Day to you Nathalie and to me - for our memories and to all our friends there and fellow bloggers.

PeterParis said...

Really spectacular your photos from the race ! Hadn’t seen them; was not yet a blogger in January 2007! Thanks! I imagine a little bit of nostalgia!

I’m too late for the quiz, but would of course have given the correct answer (after having read the comments)! :-)

Thanks for showing this mistral-blue sky! I imagine a not really warm day?

Anonymous said...

I just got the following message from Sally of Sydney Daily Photo : "Greetings direct from the Australian Open in Melbourne - Rod Laver Arena.
Now watching the match between jo-wilfrid tsonga & james blake. Tsonga just taken 1st set.
Earlier saw gilles simon & gael monfils before monfils retired hurt, so it was a very gallic day! Also nadal demolished gonzales, & serena williams for a while before her opponent also retired ill.
Great time being had.
Love Sally"

Sally won a competition which provides her with business class airfares, a night's accommodation at the Grand Hyatt, a whole heap of tennis gear and tickets to the Rod Laver Arena.It was a Qantas frequent flyers competition - she just filled in the entry on their website & got picked out.

How lucky is that! Have a wonderful day Sally and Happy Australia Day to you!!!

Jane Hards Photography said...

You made them look like a work of art, naturally.

Anonymous said...

Ouf!!! I was surprised you didn't
write about the Australian Open Tennis. Now it's done. You know I'am a fan and a tennis player.
Tsonga demolished James Blake.
I's a pity Fernando Gonzales's defeat: I love his playing and he is so,so...sexy!!!
Currently, Andy Murray is the best,very talented and impressive.
You,Nathalie, are very talented
too and impressive person. All the talents! What a wonderful woman!
Congratulations and the best friendly regards. See you in March.

Nathalie H.D. said...

Further from Sally at 9:40 pm her time: "We are sitting just behind & off the side to tsonga's team box. Just had 15 min break in play while melbourne's Australia day fireworks happened - can still smell the gunpowder!"
Thanks so much Sally for sharing the fun and excitement with us!

Anonymous said...

c'est un complot avec peter, j'en suis sûre! Ici, il est question de vigne et chez lui, on parle de bouteille. Quand le vin est tiré il faut le boire. Peter l'a bien compris. :-)
Je comprends aussi la nostalgie qui étreint le coeur lorsqu'on pense à des événements précis que l'on a vécus mais qu'on ne vit plus. Les amis australiens t'enverront certainement des photos qui te rappeleront de bons souvenirs. Je t'embrasse

claude said...

J'auris juré que c'était du métal. J'aime bien la photo de la grappe sans ses petites boules.
Je ne savais pas qu'il y avait un Australian Day. Je suis allée sur ton lien. On sent bien un peu de nostalgie ....

Anonymous said...

Me again
Nathalie,I have the feeling your heart is Australian. Your heart is in Aussie. Here, you are only"un oiseau de passage". Let's go there
But I'll miss you.

Maxime said...

Il ne reste pas même un grain pour les p'tits oiseaux...
Je te promets que j'aurai une pensée pour ces pauvres vignerons frigorifiés la prochaine fois que je boirais du rosé de Provence !

Babzy.B said...

très belle photos des vignes l'hiver ,j'ai un faible pour la deuxième :)

Anonymous said...

Il y avait plein de BBQ le 26 sur Bronte beach, là où habite maintenant la fille de Remy, jolie fête et tes photos donnent envie d'y participer.
Honte à moi pour les photos que je pensais être de glycine...

Anonymous said...

I really like this photo of the trimmed or pruned grave vines. They look to be ancient. Nice photography too on your Australia Day photos.

Olivier said...

belles photos de vigne. Je me demande si un hiver tres froid donne un meilleur vin, pas trouver la reponse sur Internet (mais il doit bien y avoir un dicton sur ce sujet)

Anonymous said...

Abraham, your words "grave vines" - was that a typo? They ring true to me though. The lines of grapevines in the bottom photo look to me like rows of graves in a military cemetery...

Anonymous said...

Belles images picorées dans les vignes où l'on ne rencontre pas que des oiseaux.

Sèche, la vigne, après la taille de printemps, va pleurer toutes les larmes de son corps. Rappel des larmes de l'enfant au monde venu.

Tomate Farcie said...

Nathalie: First things first, wow, I really need to come back and get caught up with your blog. You've put up really beautiful shots since the last time I was here!

About the how to link in the blogger commenting section, I can never remember how to do it either, so I just use Blogger to do it for me by logging in to my blog and creating a new post, inserting the link into the link-making thingy... Voila! Just make sure you are in the "edit HTML" mode when you do that.

I tried to paste the code here, but blogger wants to convert it, grrrr... Hope that helps.

Nathalie H.D. said...

Thanks for that Tomate, it doesn't appear to be the quick n'easy solution I was hoping for but it answers my question.

Anonymous said...

Nathalile: Once you see the HTML code in the blogger window, you'll understand what to do. Wish I could just cut and paste it here but every time I try, blogger just "converts" it and if I leave things out of the code. blogger says "your html code is not closed" and won't let me post a comment at all.

You can also check out places like this one (look at their chart, under "link")

http://www.web-source.net/html_codes_chart.htm

It shows you the code you need to put around your link but it's not as clean as if you go to Blogger.

TF

Marie-Noyale said...

Les bras tendus vers le ciel en appelant le soleil!!!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous I have no idea who you are. Could I have a clue?
I don't think my heart is more in Australia than it is in France. I'm afraid I am condemned to neither fully belong either here or there. "Oiseau de passage" yes, probably. Citizen of the world, undoubtly. It's the only response I have found to the fact that I have no real place I can call home.

abc said...

Wonderful picture of the vineyard (the lower one). You live in a beautiful town and surroundings and what I can see so far is that you capture it very well in your pictures. It will be a pleasure to visit again. Kind regards.

jordaenne said...

chère Nathalie
c'est l'art très puissante cette photo.
C'est l'inclinaison de l'humanité devant la mortalité.bien c'est mon interprétation.

merci our un autre chef d'œuvre.

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