WWOOFing in Fleurie, France

Katie and I spent 2 weeks participating in the exchange program, WWOOF, just outside of Fleurie. Here we met the incredible French-Italian-Irish family of Jeanne, Denny, and Anouk who are working to renovate the buildings of an old (and huge) winery and vigneron house, turning it into a bed and breakfast/art community. They have huge dreams for the future of the property and it was very inspiring to be there helping and hearing about their passion.

A view of the surrounding hills of vineyards and the chapel on top of the hill that overlooked the vineyards, La madame.

The two musketeers, Denny and me in the vineyards. Denny is quite possibly the happiest man I have ever met.


Moulin-à-Vent-the iconic windmill representing the area's wine appellation of the same name

Katie showing off some new muscles.

baby Gamey grapes, the major red grape of the region

Fleurie, this is the wine AOC region in which we worked.

Their tasting room.

14 year old bottle of Fleurie, mold and all, that we had with dinner one night.

Battle scars, showing off some new blisters.

Room with a view.

Katie scraping the paint.

Fresh cherries from the tree.

Katie cherry picking.

Pitting the cherries for the cobbler.

Kelly, a fellow WWOOFer shows off her amazing cherry pie, delicious.

View for the picnic.

Jeanne setting the table for the outside lunch.

A break from work.

Fresh raspberries in one of the gardens.

Clearing out the other garden, one of our jobs.

Now that's some weeds!

Final product. Weeds pulled, compost area built, lettuce, carrots and celery planted and raspberry and strawberries replanted.

Escargot on the garden wall.

à point as the call it here in France-this is considered "medium"in French cooking. Don't ever order something rare! It'll really still be moving...

The spread.

Sunset as we dine.

Another project was to finnish a barrier for the handrail made of grape vine cuttings that lead up to the house door. Here Katie gets some assistance from Anouk.

We borrowed their bikes to take a ride into town for some items for a picnic the next day. We got all the way home when Katie turned into the driveway, hit a soft patch of dirt and took a pretty nasty spill. Ouch!

The damage done. (katie'd like to add that it was alot worse than the picture shows...)

At dinner that night we bought a bottle from a local tasting room to share with everyone. Denny and Jeanne told us that the wine was from the vineyards surrounding the Chapel, La Madame, and is the winery that put Fleurie on the map for wines.

Mex-French dinner.

July 4th, my birthday! Happy Independence day, America! The little town where we were staying, Le Vivier, was having their annual party and we were able to come for the aperitif. The picture above is the town oven where people used to come and bake their bread. They had to heat it up every night for a week to get it ready for the party, as they used it to cook the food for the lunch and dinner.

Inside the oven.

Let the party commence.

Hanging with the locals.

Us.

After the aperitif, Katie, Kelly and I headed into Fleurie for a tasting, check out the shops, get some local cheese and get a birthday sweet.

Vin, saucisson sec, et fromage.

My birthday cakes, French style.

No birthday would be complete without our favorite show, The Office. We finally are caught up on Season 5.

On the way to the train station. Fields of sunflowers give way to hills of vineyards topped off with a beautiful skyline. Stunningly beautiful.

good-byes. We wish you guys all the luck in the world in your project!! Sounds absolutely amazing, glad we could help!

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.