Since the creation of the AOC Minervois appellation, many hectares of older vines and less popular grape varieties have been torn out and replanted with the Syrah variety (sometimes known elsewhere as Shiraz) as part of the continueing program to improve the quality of the wine products. The Syrah variety here is trained on wires and planted in rows spaced with machine harvesting in mind. Older varieties have usually been grown in bush or 'gobelet' form.

The grape harvest, or vendanges, usually takes place over several weeks around mid-September as the different varieties come to ripeness. Each year sees an increased use of harvesting machines and a corresponding reduction in the traditional hand picking methods.

The old traditional grape picking saw the local labour force heavily augmented by immigrant Spanish and Portuguese labourers who came to the area each year for the 'season'. The gradually increasing wealth and standards of living in these countries have reduced the pressure on their populations to go to France to earn seasonal picking money.

The replanting of fields with varieties grown on wires, such as Syrah, in the Minervois as part of the quality improvement programs has lead to increased use of machines for grape harvesting. Pressure on the growers from the social security services to declare their part time seasonal work force and to pay the social security charges has also helped the decline in traditional hand picking.

2001 sees the producers, especially the Cooperatives, having increasing difficulty in selling their wine. By the summer it is clear that large quantities of the lower grade wine remains unsold. The better grades are less affected but still suffer to some extent from the increasing competition coming from South America, Australia, the USA and even the old countries of eastern Europe. Production costs are lower in many of these countries and this is partly because of the higher social charges in France and partly because of the better climatic conditions in the other countries, some of which need never treat their vines against odium or mildew.

Another factor which does not help is that domestic consumption of wine has been falling year on year for the past twenty or more years in France. Producers have increasingly been obliged to turn towards the export markets of the world.

By August, the pressure is on the caves because they will shortly need the storage tanks for the forthcoming harvest of 2001 which generally begins around mid-September. Steps have already been taken to reduce the quantity of fruit to be harvested this year by carrying out a 'green harvest' - cutting and scrapping a percentage of the unripe bunches of grapes to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of the remaining fruit. Other steps are being taken to send some of the unsold stocks to distillation.

Payments to the producers by the cooperatives have been reduced causing hardship in many cases and the price of vineyards has plummetted. The industry has known other periods of recession but informed opinion expects this depression to last for some considerable time.

2004: and the producers say that, at last, there are indications that the prices obtained for sale of their wine are beginning to improve.
The winter period is spent pruning the vines. All over the region, you can see isolated figures hunched over the vines, back to the wind and with hood raised against the cold. Pruning is hard and solitary work on the whole, although some do work in groups especially those organised as specialised sub-contractors. Most take a day off when it rains unless they are falling far behind with their work. The problem with the rain is that so often, the soil is heavy clay and workers end up with enormous clogs of clay on their feet. Some of the older growers prefer to sub-contract the pruning to younger people and although the price paid is freely negotiated, it tends to vary only by some 2 cents more or less per vine according to the area. The prices agreed for 2004 are generally similar to (and including 10% for paid holidays) the following, in cents of euro per vine :

style of pruning	Gobelet		Royat palissé		Guyot simple		Guyot double
	no wires	on 2-3 wires	2-3 wires	4-5 wires	2-3 wires	4-5 wires	2-3 wires	4-5 wires
pre-pruned	0.077	0.08	0.09	0.09	0.08	0.08	0.09	0.09
no pre-pruning	0.099	0.1	0.11	0.12	0.11	0.13	0.12	0.14

Pre-pruning is mostly carried out by machines, an attachment on the tractor rather like a barbers cutter, which reduce the length of the sarments to something like 30 cms instead of up to 2 metres. The tractor then rakes the cuttings up and they are burnt.

If the vines have not been pre-pruned, the pruner has to gather the cut sarments together in alternate rows for subsequent collection by the tractor. Another, older fashioned way of proceeding which is still commonly seen, is where the pruner pushes along a burning cart made from an old barrel on wheels - like a wheel barrow. Then each cut sarment is thrown straight into the fire.