Vines in bottles

Not only is wine put in bottles — so are vines. New vines that have just been planted must need extra protection from hungry animals — maybe the local roe deer — that would like to nibble on tender new leaf buds.

All around the vineyard stand little stone or concrete-block huts or sheds like the one above, or nicer. Some seem to have fireplaces and chimneys. It's easy to imagine that in the days before motorized cars and trucks, the vignerons who tended the vines might have needed places to take shelter against the weather, or even to spend the night if the walk home was a long one. They also needed places to store their tools, since they couldn't just throw them into the back of a truck and haul them away.

Nowadays, when the vigneron plants a new vine to replace one that has died and been pulled out, he's likely to place a cut mineral water or fruit juice bottle over the shoot to keep pests away. The vine starts its vineyard life in a bottle, and the juice from the grapes that grow on it ends up in bottle too.

So what gets stored nowadays in a shed like the one in the first picture above? Well, just guess. I poked my camera inside...