Veuve Clicquot Harvest: The Food- 09.22.10
It’s harvest time of year! And the nice folks at Veuve Clicquot brought me out to Paris/Reims once again for harvest ~ and blame it on Tasteologie, with food on the mind, i just had to share with you some of the yummier side of laborious grape picking Veuve style! For the look at the whole Harvest process, check out these pics from last year. And this year we had cheeky, chic black Harvest Staff tee shirts ~ most amusing of course was watching how the fashionable crowd immediately took to our limited resources out on the vineyard to start cutting them up with grape cutting shears to personalize them… so browse on to the next page to see a peek at what the food is like throughout the day… a slight twist on what “real” harvesters eat throughout the season…
Hopping on a train bright and early, by around 9am, we’re at the Country House ~ and there’s a spread of cofffee, juice, and pastries awaiting everyone as we prepare… aren’t these cups just adorable? Love the way the metal twists to form a handle…
And these double walled pitchers! I’m smitten by them! Amazing to see how close the walls get at the top, yet diverge so elegantly below…
From that morning snack, it’s off to the grapes! More picking than eating, but no one could resist sneaking a few, they are delicious! So so sweet!
Basket after basket ~ crate after crate ~
And ok, while this isn’t necessarily food… this poor vine wasn’t doing so well, and its bunches turned red and became raisins, but having never seen raisins on the vine… i had to share it! it COULD be food?
By early afternoon, it’s time for a food (and wine) break ~ normal workers who start around 7am, would be taking a break like this around 9:30 to refuel their bodies. The special wine we had at this time was Bouzy, which is a still red wine that Veuve Clicquot used to sell, but they stopped when they needed all of it to blend for their Rosés ~ now it is only available at special occasions like harvest!
Silly as it is, if i had to pick a favorite Parisian indulgence, my love of these raisin swirls started when i was a little girl, and they still delight me!
meats… and bread…
cheeses… and yogurt… and fruit compote…
….. Then BACK TO WORK! More grape picking for a bit longer…
Until it’s time to retire to the gardens for Veuve Cliquot and hors d’œuvres… I adore that they filled one of our grape picking baskets with ice to chill the bottles of yellow label!
After that snack ~ we had a late lunch inside the main dining room… a stew like dish of variety of meats and vegetables, balanced to keep workers going throughout the day!
There really is something so beautiful about the color of Mimolette!
And to finish it off ~ a delicious cherry/custard tart!
Such a beautiful day out ~ and nothing quite like a fun day manual labor, fun friends, and endless vineyards to kick off the fall season!