Today the vignerons, french for winemakers, of the famous Cotes du Rhone production area have been staging, like they do every year, le ban des vendanges, a procession that comes complete with medieval costumes, jugglers, acrobats, donkeys and heavily embroidered banners. The procession follows the main street, 50 meters from our building, anf ends at the rocher des Dom, the huge monolith on wich sits the cathedral and the Popes palace. There was Mass at the cathedral, and some harvesting in the tiny Pope's wineyard at the top of the Rocher, facing the Rhone valley. But clearly all this people expected more action.
Wine tasting, anybody?
We had guests staying at the studio and they bought for 2 euros a magical glass : (acually they bought two which says a lot to their taste for good wine. They were told they could refil it as often as they liked ... provided they sat patiently trough all the official adresses from the mayor, the prefet, the presidents of various societies ...
As they told us, the end of all these discourses was vigourously applauded. The good news is that everybody in the wine profession was confident that 2009 will be a great year, having benefited from lots of sun - and little rain except at the end of the maturation process, which is said to be just fine.