Grape picking with a Portuguese twist

For the second year running, João Tito and his team of about 50 pickers travelled over 800 km from the city of Mirandela in northern Portugal to reach Pauillac, where our Lynch-Bages vineyards stretch over the land.

From a distance, you would have seen heads bent over rows of vines, backs hunching as baskets were filled, eyes trained on sorting tables. On approaching you would have heard laughter, the odd “cuidado!”, and maybe a song. A group of men and women ranging in age from 18 to 68, from different walks of life, brought together this year, during the period from18th September and 5th October, when harvest was finished.

In their hometown, they are plumbers, students, bricklayers, bakers and psychologists, some are retired.
In the vineyard they form an organised group sharing tasks, forty pickers filling the baskets of ten carriers, taking it in turns to pour their harvest out onto the sorting table. 

It took just a few days for the pickers to get into the swing of things, under the watchful eye of Nelson Pires, reporting to vineyard manager Franck Debrais. Each morning he would check who was present, set the agenda for the day, assign every picker a row and keep morale high. Nearly all those present last year returned in 2017, some for the adventure and the journey, others for the more practical purpose of earning an additional wage, all revelling in the atmosphere and – they are the first to admit – in the gourmet French meals! 

Most were recruited by João Tito, a bus driver by profession, who brought them from Mirandela all the way to Pauillac and who ferried them to and fro every day between the vineyards and the Le Paradis campsite where they were staying. It was he who put up posters throughout the town and who spread the word among friends and more distant acquaintances to attract volunteers, and it didn’t take him long to find his team, even managing to convince his 60-year-old father to join them.

Franck is delighted with how it all went. “We worked methodically and efficiently, respecting each other’s sensitivities, and in contagious good humour,” he said. 

Although conscientious and committed, all admit that harvesting is a rapid source of aches and pains, but they lost neither their motivation nor their momentum. According to Deolinda, the eldest woman in the group, grape harvests are nothing compared to strawberry picking. And the 60-year-old should know what she’s talking about, because she harvests olives, strawberries, almonds and chestnuts all year round. Others speak of the need for common sense and for a little inside knowledge, for example adding small cushions to the baskets relieves the backs and shoulders of carriers. 

This year again, all poured their energy into helping us with these first stages of our 2017 vintage. And when the harvest finally came to an end, we had just one wish... that we would see them all again next September!