Last Monday and Tuesday saw Gavin in France to oversee our very first harvest at Château de Corneilla, working in the vineyard alongside William Jonqueres d’Oriola from the estate. To ensure that all of the grapes reached London in the best possible condition they were hand harvested, sorted and then loaded into large flat crates for their 820 mile journey to the winery.
I’ve been repeatedly assured that despite the very sunny looking photos this was really hard work – alleviated in large part by the very kind hospitality of William and his family (apparently the meals will live particularly long in the memory).
After two long days in the vineyard and a successful harvest of just under eight tons of grapes Gavin waved off the final lorry, had a well-deserved lunch and then hightailed it back to the airport to be in London in time to meet the grapes when they rocked up in SW6.
Finally a big thank you to Ian for the exceptional photographs he took – if you’d like to see more of what was happening in the vineyard check his Flickr set for this event.