A Trailer Full Of Grapes.

A sign of belonging...

This really will show my age without a doubt but it has to be. A long long time ago, ads for cigarettes were ubiquitous. The most exclusive of these ads were created for the cinema and left most of us mere mortals wondering at the lives of the rich and famous. Subliminally we were told that all we'd need was to have a cigarette in our hands to change our lives for ever. Ironic, isn't it? A particular one that springs to mind was the Peter Stuyvesant one.

Smoke a Peter Stuyvesant cigarette for your international passport to smoking pleasure.

Now we just shake our heads at such stupidity, but back in the day one was tempted to inhale this passport. If only to also be able to sit aboard a luxury powerboat, looking pretty and being surrounded by smoking hunks!

Well, yesterday was the day to harvest the Uhudler grapes and it took five of us three hours to do the actual picking. When every last grape was harvested they were put into red crates, which were stacked onto a trailer. A trailer being pulled by a car ( small fry in the harvesting department as the big guns drive huge tractors...ultimate passport indeed ) which I had the fortune to sit in.

It was a sunny and bright day yesterday which meant that the Who's who of Eisenberg & Deutsch Schützen were harvesting. Even as I picked the dark, plumb and sweet Uhudler grapes in my row, I could hear the jolly banter of pickers in the next vineyard only interrupted by the sound of tractors fetching the crates.

Driving slowly to our cellar to de-stem the grapes, we passed several villagers along the way. When they saw the trailer bursting with grapes they gave us a nod of acceptance and belonging. Being seen pulling a trailer full of grapes can almost be likened to our passport to village pleasure...

Biggi