The Wrath of Grapes

Visiting Americans can't legally work in France, but there is nothing to prevent visitors from doing what I did -- volunteering and soaking up the atmosphere, not to mention wine and meals. Considering that some British tour companies actually charge tourists to pick grapes as part of wine country tours, I feel as though I got a bargain.

Siebert is about as down-to-earth as winemakers get. During harvest week, he had the rumpled, unshaven look of a man who stays up to the wee hours and sleeps in his jeans and sweat shirt. Indeed, that week Siebert worked long hours in the cellar, operating the modern presses and centrifuges that extract the juice and then filling the steel fermentation tanks. At lunchtime in the winery's modest dining room-bar-kitchen-office, he joked with workers and sat at the head of the table.

Lunch was served by a chef, Gerard, who was on vacation from his job as a cook at a local retirement home. That first day's lunch began with a plate including a slab of pâté surrounded by a trio of shredded vegetable salads. White wine was poured from bottles bearing no labels.

When I asked what we were drinking, Siebert said it was a house blend of several varietals. He was cut off by one of my fellow pickers, a white-haired man with a thick moustache who suggested that Siebert should not divulge too much to me. After all, what would keep me from going to California and planting vines there? This was the first of two occasions on which someone would raise the suspicion that I was an American spy.

Siebert, disregarding the warning, explained that he experimented with machine harvesting in 1998 but that the machines couldn't distinguish between ripe and rotten grapes and "the result was no good."

"Yes, I know they say they have improved the machines now, but I just don't believe in them," Siebert added. "It's personal. I am anti-machine."

For the main course, we ate family-style portions of grilled white sausages and fries. Then came platters of fruit and cheese, including the local favorite, Alsatian muenster. For the finale, a liter bottle of transparent liquid was set on the table along with dainty stemmed shot glasses.

"Mirabelle" was hand-scrawled on a small white label, indicating that the contents were yellow plum liqueur, also known as "Le whiskey d'Alsace."

As both the new guy and, as far as anyone knew, the first American to pick grapes in Wolxheim, I felt it my duty to down the glass in one easy gulp. It sent a warm glow from stomach through my chest and up to the follicles on top of my head.

It was time to go back to work.

Baptism by Pinot

"I remember the first day I did the vendange -- I was ready to cry," Florence, the bank worker, explained to me through the vines on Day 2. "But every day is better."

That morning I'd awoken feeling nearly paralyzed and crawled out of my bed for an ibuprofen. I was hoping that Florence, who was in the midst of her fourth harvest, was right.