As every year grapes–gathering comes. People gather grapes during the whole September and October. The winegrowers prepare for this event. Although it is not at all easy job, it is very interesting and exciting.
The day before going to wine yard large barrels should be prepared to put grapes and new wine in. Early in the morning, about 5 o'clock, my mother and me get up and prepare breakfast for our relatives and friends who are going to help us. The breakfast consists of traditional Slavonian meat products; sausages, ham, «kulen» (a special pepper sausage), cheese and drinks.
After this meal we put all the necessary things and the food for lunch in a trailer and we go to the wine yard. As we approach it, the exhilarated feeling that we climb somewhere high into the endlessly beautiful nature, which is all around us, over flew us. The higher we climb, the more trees surround us on both sides of our path. Suddenly the wine yard seems like the «promised land», so full of grapes and fruits it looks like paradise. Wine yards are in the hills and the view is magnificent. You can see plains below, trees in beautiful autumn colours, villages in the distance, tractor-trailer.
Although it is early in the morning, people are in a good mood, and they take their baskets, b put them on their backs and starts gathering grapes, each man one raw. People are divided into groups of five, four of them gather grapes, and the fifth carries full baskets to large barrels placed on the tractor-trailer.
The scene wouldn't be complete without children who play around and make some damage. They hide in the wine yard a among the plants, hit each other with berries, sometimes the victims can be some of the gatherers, but it is always funny and cheerful.
About noon is time for lunch. We can smell tasty meat, which women prepared on the grill. While people eat they often make jokes on the host’s account, referring to his grapes, wine and wine yard, but no one takes them hard. By the end of the day each of the gatherers takes grapes of his own choice and puts into his basket. He will take it to his own home for his family.
When everything is over, we go back to our house to have dinner. Men remain working in the cellar late in the night, squeezing the grapes and making new wine. They pour it into wood barrels to be turned into wine till St. Martin’s day.

Ana Milić - 3K