WWOOFing at Château Brandeau

The second week of our February vacation, we decided to get the real WWOOF experience by staying about a week in the vineyards of Château Brandeau. This is the same winery that we WWOOF'd at before Christmas. We were both really excited to learn a little more about the vines and the work involved.

Our main job this week was to "tirer le bois" (translated "pull the wood") and is essentially ripping the vine prunings out of the trellis wires. We usually did this for about 3 1/2 hours in the morning before it go too hot. This was pretty physical work!

Katie shows off the proper technique (and asks did you buy tickets to the gun show?)

After pulling out the vine cuttings, we placed them in the middle of the rows. Some vineyards burn the vine cuttings, but here at Château Brandeau, they use another method using a tractor with a grinder to grind the cuttings into little mulch pieces.

Some of the animals along the way as we headed out in the morning.


In the afternoon, we were assigned less taxing jobs like weeding the gardin and turning the soil.

Then feeding the weeds to the chickens.

Another job was to feed the horse.

Another afternoon, we helped label some Château Brandeau 2005 for an order that was coming up. Good thing we had some experience with this stuff when we helped our good friends at Château Ross back when we lived in Tennessee. If you live in Tennessee and haven't tried their wines then you are missing out! Check them out! Click here. If you visit them, tell Ross and Deborah that Ben and Katie say "Salut from France!"

Some of the finished products.

Another afternoon job was to "caler la vigne" (translated "to fix/secure the vine") which is done after the pruning and pulling of the cuttings, to check if the vine stalk is still securely attached to the bottom trellis as seen in the video above.

An example of what it looks like when done.

The sun starting to set in the vines.

After a long week of work, our bodies were sore but still had a smile on our faces. We done good kid, we done good. (btw, Katie DOES NOT approve of this picture.)

Finished with work and waiting for dinner, Katie and I sat out on the patio. I decided to grab the guitar and serenade my wife.

"throw your feet up in the air"

uhhh

that's better.

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It was a great vacation and it felt good to do some physical work. We also learned some more about behind the scenes at the vineyard.

Bouillabaisse!

Katie and I have started a tradition of riding our bikes down to the riverside on Sundays and buy food from the market to eat lunch and hang out by the river. Today, we decided to splurge and buy some Bouillabaisse. I had read about this fish stew in a Peter Mayle book and had it on my list of food to try since I got here. It originated in the Provençal city of Marseille and is a stew of numerous fishes, vegetables, and spices. Here is what is in the classic Marseille Bouillabaisse: fish (sea robin, scorpionfish, red Gurnard, conger, lotte or monkfish, John Dory), live octopus, sea urchins, potatoes, garlic, onions, ripe tomatoes, olive oil, garni, fennel, saffron, salt and Cayenne pepper.

Good stuff but the fish was a little chewy, you must have to go to Marseille to get the real stuff. (Also, in case you are wondering, that white smudge on my hat is flour from the baguette, not bird poop.)

Bon Appétit, girl!

The lunch. The cheese on the left was really good and local from the Basque region of France. Unfortunately, the blue cheese was a little to earthy and fungus-tasting for us. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Cahors (Part 2) & More

Our next excursion away from Cahors took us to the town of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie which was named one of the most beautiful towns in France (in the picture below, Katie stands next to the sign to prove it)


Saint-Cirq-Lapopie was an enchanting little town. It rested on a steep hill, overlooking the valley and river with old buildings and narrow steep walkways like the one above.

A Lookout from the steepest point in the town.

Not a bad veiw, eh?

A view of the church.

Part of the old town wall and the church, notice to the left of the walkway there is the roof of one of the other houses on the a lower level.

An old gate.

A face in the wall, not sure what it symbolized, but I like the picture.

I love this picture of us. This is after we hiked down from the town and walked along a trail by the river.

The old water mill.

Some water from the well?

The start of the long hike back up.

For sale...hmmmm

After the hike back up top, it was time for lunch - Baguette, clementine, Roquefort cheese, kidney beans, Pruneau d'Agen and some Cahors wine. katie's note: definetly a "whatta dinner" (my MT girls will understand...)

The view during lunch.

After lunch we hiked back down to catch the bus in the town across the river. Here is a shot of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie to give you some perspective. Truly a picturesque town.

We had a few hours until the bus came so we relaxed by the river.

We had a few visitors join us.

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The next day, we left Cahors by train and stopped in Katie's old stomping grounds: the city of Bergerac.

This is the Phonebox 24 (internet room or box) where Katie used to email me back in 2005 when she was taking her TEFL course. Crazy to think that four years later, we are married and now living in France together! Life's been good to us!

The church in Bergerac.

A monument to la resistance during WWII.

The maison du vin of Bergerac.

A picture of the "terroir"

Bergerac is known for its old buildings as pictured here with walls of cob, a mixture of mortar and straw, and a wooden framework.

My best impression of Cyrano de Bergerac. The statue is in honor of the famous play that was set in Bergerac with the main character, Cyrano, and his unusually long nose. Not sure if you remember the Steve Martin movie, Roxanne, but it was based on this play. If you haven't heard of that movie, then maybe you have heard of the Police song "Roxanne"?

Cahors (Part 1)

For the first week of our Février (February) vacation, we decided to stay closer to home. We wanted to explore some cities around Bordeaux. Since it was still too cold to head southwest to the beach towns of Aquitaine, we decided to head east along the Dordogne and Lot River to the city of Cahors and the surrounding towns.

Here is a picture of the of the medieval cathedral, Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Cahors, and the market in which we picked up some food for later in the day. Everything was much cheaper than we were used to. Give it up for small towns!

OK...part of the reason we chose Cahors was because of the AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée or in other words, Cahors and the surrounding region) are known for their wines...the black wine...the malbec grape! We have had many malbec wines from the "new world" such as Chile and Argentina and loved the wines that we tasted. The price vs. quality were also good deals. Many of the new world malbecs, we found to be spicy and peppery. We wanted to see what the "old world" had to offer and the difference in taste. We caught the bus to the next town of Douelle. This is where we originally we were going to rent bikes and ride around to vineyards, but in the town, we found many small wineries that were happy to let us try their wines without an appointment! This is big for France and for us, since we are more spur of the moment planners and a majority of wineries here require you have to have an appointment which can entail many phone calls or emails to nail down the right person you need to talk to make an appointment. Anyways, here is a picture in front of the first place that we stopped.

Cahors wines and the malbec grape are known to be powerful and tannic wines so they need time to settle down a little bit. Most of the wines that we tasted were anywhere from 5-10 years old which was really interesting to taste. These are much older wine than we are used in terms of the "new world" wines. Much of the spiciness was much more subtle and you get more dried fruits as opposed to fresh fruits. At this place, the man was friendly and talkative, we liked this bottle and offered to buy one but the man just gave it to us, for free!!! A good, free bottle of wine, can't beat that!

Cahors - The legend of Malbec. A picture of the chai - the wine cellar.

Here is a picture of the outside.

The road leading to the next stop.

A picture of the famous black wine with the official glass of the Cahors region.

After some tastings, we had a picnic lunch at the bus stop with some food we picked up at the market in front of the church in Cahors. Rocamadour cheese was a specialty of the region. Made from young goats milk. Not our favorite but glad we tasted it.

Some dried sausage and the bleu de brebis cheese that started our love affair with these types of blue cheeses. Not sure what it was about this cheese but it was so unbelievably good!!! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Hold on a sec, I am going to run to the store and get some right now...
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...still here? Cool. Ever since we had this cheese, we have steadily been buying different kinds of blue cheeses, Roquefort is still the favorite, St. Agur is a close second.

I wish we would have gotten a picture of the lady that helped us with the tasting here. She was so nice and excited to see us. She spoke great broken english to us and I tried to speak French in return. It was a great time. I love supporting small businesses like this!!!

A tabac/restaurant that we grabbed a café to warm up. I thought the ambiance was awesome and truly european. Stone walls, cat on the bar, to the right was a huge fireplace where wood logs crackled & kept us warm and an old lady with a warm smile ran the place.

A view of a small river filled with fish that ran through Douelle. The church steeple in the background.

The bridge that led to the town.
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That night, after wandering around all day, we were tired and hungry. We walked around the whole city trying to find a place to eat. We ended up eating at a crêperie that offered crêpes as well as a regular menu too.

We made the right choice! Here is my appetizer of mussels in a safron cream sauce.

Katie's appetizer of pâté...not bad, but I shared my mussels with her.

Happy travelers.

For a digestif, we tried another regional specialty, pruneaux d'Armagnac. We THOUGHT we were just getting a drink- usually a digestif is a very small and strong drink, but this turned out to be a glass of prunes in a liquor. The verdict: delicious.

Yum. How do you know that you are getting old?? You start to eat and love the taste of prunes. If that is true than Katie and I are well beyond our years because we do love them especially the Pruneaux d'Agen (prunes from the region of Agen)

Another angle.

Cahors is famous for their medieval bridge: Le Pont Valentré. The city is also littered with other medieval leftovers.

A look at the cobble stone and tower on the bridge.

Another angle.

Not a medieval remanant but a modern lock used for lowering boast between stretches of water. The reason for the picture: when I asked Katie "Do you know what this is used for?" After thinking long and hard on the possibilities, she replied "did they take a bath in it?"

Once we crossed the bridge on the other side of the river, there was a trail that we hiked up and snapped this shot of the bridge.

Some friends that joined us on the hike up.

The view from above.

A video with the panoramic view.

A view of the middle tower of the bridge and the stone devil that was added. Essentially, the story goes, the architect supposedly made a deal with the devil to help complete the bridge but just before the completion, the architect devised a way that it could not be finish. Click here for the actual story (Much better than my telling of it). When they restored the bridge, they put the stone devil to immortalize the story.

Here is the Arc de Diane part of the Gallo-Roman baths.

The tower of La Barbacane, a midieval gateway into the city.

The living quarters of the La Barbacane
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After walking around the city, we figured, why not try and walk to a few vineyards outside the city? They didn't look that far on the map, right? They were farther than we thought. We got a little outside the city and decided it was too far, getting too late and turned around. In all, I think we walked about 7-8 miles.

Here is yet another view of the bridge from another angle on the walk back into the city.