The weather site we look at daily, météociel.fr, gives us a forecast for the next 10 days. This morning, there's not one drop of rain in that 10-day forecast. There are times when that would be wonderful news, but right now it's just plain strange. I guess the only thing to do is to take advantage of the sunshine while it lasts. Make hay...
By the way, in most years the winter rains start in late October. If it doesn't start raining in early November, I'm going to know something is seriously wrong. Meanwhile, most of the grapes around here have been harvested now, so the local vignerons have nothing to fear. With the warm days we are having, they probably could have left the grapes on the vines even longer. The photos here are a week old.
Two or three days ago, I was walking between two rows of vines near our house with Tasha. They were in a parcel that had been harvested a few days earlier. I noticed there were still quite a few little bunches of grapes on them, so I picked a few.
I pressed the grapes I'd picked when I got home, using a big mortar and pestle. I strained out the seeds and skins and made myself a glass of grape juice for breakfast. Delicious. It tasted as good as the grapes in these photos look.
We've only had a sprinkling of rain here and on the one hand I know we're desperate and would love it to rain. On the other, we're really enjoying what seems to us like an endless summer. The temperatures we've had lately are very similar to the summer temperatures we could hope for in Derbyshire!
ReplyDeleteThese temperatures are estivales here in the Loire Valley as well. I like weather to be variable. I guess I'm weird. The same weather day after day after day... well, it gets boring. And it is just too dry. Trees, bushes, vines, hedges are dying for lack of moisture. I count half a dozen dead trees around our neighborhood — apples, pears, other fruit trees, for example.
DeleteI remember that, in 1981, it rained at least some almost every day of October. I just remember remarking on it in my mind, and even thinking, "No wonder the cars are always all so clean... they get rained on every day!"
ReplyDeleteThat was in Paris, I meant to say.
DeleteThat's how I remember October in Paris, too. And usually here October is fairly rainy, but not this year. Often we have a week of nice weather in late October before the November rains and chill set in.
DeleteWe are very dry here also. Fresh grape juice is a treat!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, because east and north of you the weather has been so rainy.
DeleteThose grapes are beautiful. I'm sure the juice was great. The mechanical harvesters seem to leave quite a few grapes behind.
ReplyDeleteI've read that mechanical harvesters can be regulated so that only ripe grapes are shaken off the vines, leaving over-ripe "raisins" and under-ripe bunches behind. The grapes I picked had another week of sun and heat so had ripened further. The juice was pretty sweet and tasty.
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