Ampuis is a little town about 40 minutes south of Lyon and is where I'll be spending the next 3 months working in the winery for Domaine Ogier. It's a beautiful little place surrounded by terraced hill vineyards on one side and the Soane River on the other.
I'm living on site in a little apartment with a kiwi and French chap. The mother and father of the winemaker also live on site and Helene is like our grandmother, making us lunch and making sure we're happy. She's super sweet but speaks no English but that doesn't stop her having bit chats to us in French ;) Michel, her husband, is the original winemaker, but has retired. He's an awesome guy and we've had some hilarious 'chats' - him with no English and me with no French, it's helping a lot with my French. I was showing Michel pics of home the oher day and he started flicking though all my Facebook pics and laughing, bit nerve wracking!
I arrived pretty sick, so had a few days to recover, then have been helping with wine orders and today I was in the vineyard, while we wait for the fruit to fully ripen. The vineyards here are like nothing I've ever seen, they super steep and stony so working in the you have to be as nimble as a mountain goat (check out my pics to see what I mean).
One really interesting thing I've noticed about France so far is that at the start of the working day everyone greets each other with a kiss (for ladies) and a handshake for the boys. When I was working on orders the other morning two of the vineyard workers came in and gave me a kiss (2 cheeks of course) good morning. It's really nice and they also do it at night to say goodbye. A you imagine doing that in an office in NZ...ha ha...
It's been pretty sunny so far but I was told this morning it can snow here as early as November and has been as cold as -15 degrees Celcius!
So it's been a nice quiet settling in period but next week we'll be getting the winery all ready to roll then the week after (cross fingers) we'll be getting the fruit in! So I'll keep you posted!
