It's officially Tuesday so I thought I'd be the first out of you lot to post today!
I'll tell you an interesting story: A friend of mine recently started working for a company that sells a lot of wine - I too worked for this company, but mostly for the staff discount! Anyhow, two months after his appointment he was sent on a trip to some chateaus in France at the time of the grape harvest. The first harvest he observed he helped out with. He stood on a conveyer belt watching all of the bunches of grapes roll by. He was asked to check the bunches and pick off all of the slugs and snails from the grapes. He was surprised by quite how many slugs and snails were clinging to them, but happily carried out his task.
The next chateau he was at - owned by the same family - had a slightly different method of harvest. The equipment would automatically separate the individual grapes. Again he manned the conveyer belt (or at least I believe it was a conveyer belt), and was asked to check the grapes. However, he soon realised that curled up slugs and snails are almost impossible to tell apart from individual grapes, so using this method quite a few slugs and snails made it into the barrels.
So next time you buy a bottle it might be worth asking if it's suitable for vegetarians.
Fruity, with an amber palette and just a feint aftertaste of mollusc.
2008-03-04 @ 10:11