Saturday 22 August we harvested grapes. The first grape harvest of the new fields of Paolo, our neigbhour. He planted five vineyards in our village, little more than two years ago. Two of them are around Casa da Lima. He worked hard when he was in our village, we saw him already early in the mornings, when he was on two of his lands. But he was never too busy to say hello (and more) to pilgrims passing by!
Twin Giant mountains
First Paolo had walnut trees on the land across our house, but they were old and had a sickness, so he decided to pull them out, and started his new grape adventure.
I had to do some digging but I found a photo with the sick trees (and kids)!
Gerumelo Wine
The name of the wines will be Gerumelo, named after the two hills around our house Gemanelo and Jerumelo. These hills are famous in our region, because of the story of the two Giants. We go there regularly to enjoy the view, have a nice walk, and in our mindful retreats the silent walk goes all the way to the top of the Germanelo.
We walk to the top of one of the mountains during our mindful silent walk, and during that retreat we do some stretching and cooling down at our land behind the grape vines and mill of Paolo.
Family & Friends Gathering
A grape harvest in Portugal is about family & friends and village members. If you deal with people here, there is just one rule if you make appointments long term: With the harvest of grapes, they are absent, the harvest comes first!
Paolo didn’t grew up in our village Ribeira de Alcalamouque, but more in Coimbra and later he lived in Porto, so people from Porto, Coimbra and family from Figueira da Foz came over, as well as friends from our village Ribeira de Alcalamouque. With a team of around 25 people we started at 8:00.
Four Varieties
On his vineyards he has two different varieties of the white grape and two of the red ones. Since the red ones have to ripe longer to get more sweetness, we only picked the white ones.
From the first field, next to Casa da Lima we went to the other one across our house and the pilgrims route. Cinta stayed behind, she harvested two buckets, which she found enough, while we walked to his quinta to have a short break with beer, drinks and there was some cheese and home made sweet bread too, in Portuguese they call it bolu.
Near his house in our village and quinta he has two more vineyards were we went after the break lanche de manha. We were finished early and 11:30 the last white grapes were harvested, and we continued with the cleaning of the grapes, and mixing with some products for starting the fermentation process.
Feast after the Harvest
After having all grapes without the stems in a big ice cold bucket, we could have a nice lunch at his quinta. A very nice place where people get married. He had typical Portuguese food: Chanfana, goat slowly cooked in red wine, and Pao de Lo humido. His wife made orange cakes. Of course there was a espumante, a Portuguese champagne and red and white wine from Podentes.
Well, I am waiting for next year, because then we will have Gerumelo one and may be two years later the espumante?! Ribeira de Alcalamouque will be more than just a village without a communal gathering place.
To be continued…. because the red grapes are still hanging there.
