September is the vintage time in Istria. It is time to join a grape harvest and see for yourself where the wine is born. I presume many winemakers, especially the small-scale ones, will accept your help with great pleasure since most of the grapes in Istria are hand-picked and there is never enough work force.
On the T-shirt: “Let’s go to the party”
Today I joined the harvest of Istrian Malvasia in Bruno Trapan’s vineyards near Šišan (here are here are previous posts about him and his wines). The weather was nice and a light sea breeze refreshed us throughout the day, a perfect Indian summer day. The grapes were ripe and healthy that surely required a good work in the vineyard. In fact, a great amount of work and devotion since from the last year Bruno adopted the techniques of biological (organic) farming.
Picking grapes was easy and fun thanks to many nice people I met there, all of them Bruno’s friends or in the family. You pick grapes, and you talk, talk, talk… About life, universe, wine, food, good restaurants, balsamic vinegar, philosophy, connection of science and art, archeology, movies, politics, how facebook is bad and that nothing can replace good old-fashioned face-to-face chitchat.
It is easy to pick grapes when you are a kid.
Even the kids helped us a lot. They showed me an old oak in the neighborhood equipped with a hidden tree house. It is probably serves as a watchtower to local hunters. Here they hide and wait for wild boars to appear, and then BANG!!!
Hunters’ watchtower in an old oak
In fact, Bruno had so many problems with wild boars eating the sweetest and ripest grapes. So, this year he installed an electric fence around the vineyard. It seems it works fine.
Electric fence against the wild boars
At about 2 PM we had lunch served on the heaviest table I have ever seen. Essentially, a massive stone of cylindrical shape and diameter of about 6 m! As impressive as the food we ate – sauerkraut garnished with smoked and fresh pork, ćevapčići, potato salad, šopska salata (cucumber, tomato, onions and feta together).
The heaviest table I have ever seen
The drinks at our disposition, many cases of Trapan’s wines and liters of beer, caused such a cozy laziness that continuing work in the afternoon was a great challenge to many of us.
Fuck facebook when you are in a good company
The truck is departing for winery in Pula
But even with this relaxed approach to work, in just two days around 18 tons of Istrian Malvasia have been manually picked. Now everything is in the hands of Bruno to whom I am sending best wishes in this critical period of vinification. I am already looking forward to try Malvasia 2009.
View Trapan’s vineyards in a larger map
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
18 tons, man! we only picked 450 kilos, 5 of us, in one afternoon… petits joueurs!
hey Clem, don't worry. it is only a matter of good organization and there was far more people. plus, we didn't have to carry heavy boxes full of grapes, you just cut the grapes and gently put it inside.
you had your harvest in Peruški? how were the grapes? I think this vintage will be excellent since there was not too much rain.
to, majstori! odlazak u berbu mi je davna neispunjena želja, i to baš kod trapana. sljedeće godine svakako se želim uguziti i uživati!
@gurwoman… Slobodno se javi, dobrovoljci uvijek dobrodošli… by Trapan