Last July we had the great opportunity to visit Gregoire's headquarters (Cognac - France) thanks to its official dealer in our area, Talleres Marsemar. It was a trip that we will remember fondly, due to its fantastic atmosphere generated by all those who attended the event. The warm welcome in France and the opportunity to visit the headquarters of the French grape harvester and sprayer manufacturer were part of our wonderful experience.
During the training days, we were able to attend a talk explaining how the joystick works on the grape harvesters and how it is possible to configure and use the new iMonitor. The machines can be customized to be adapted to the best working conditions for each vineyard, almond or olive grove. They also explained in detail some of the adjustments, especially to the harvesting head. Besides, we talked about maintenance highlighting the most important and common spare parts that are usually used during a harvesting season. In another talk, we looked at Gregoire's extensive portfolio of grape harvesters and sprayers. We were also able to test the driving simulator of a grape harvester... they are developing it together with the universities of the area and taking into account an open-source software project.
The next day, we visited the factory where all the grape harvesters are assembled. As they indicated, they do not manufacture all parts (such as chassis and everything related to cutting, bending and machining) that are made in external companies that are at most 300km away. Everything arrives at the factory ready for the first step, which is cleaning and painting. Once all this is done, the grape harvesters are assembled. As you can see in our video and photos, the cabins are also fully assembled there. We thought that the assembly line would be like that of tractors, where they go through different areas to assemble the different parts. In this case, the chassis is fixed, and the machine is fully assembled on site. Another thing that surprised us was the number of pieces it carries... For example, each GL series grape harvester has about 500 meters of tubes.
It should be noted that we didn't have any restrictions when filming inside the factory. It should be mentioned that it is an interesting factory, very well equipped, clean and tidy. They are currently producing 2 grape harvesters per day, when the norm was to finish 2.5 grape harvesters per day. The current problem is that a year ago they suffered a fire (in the painting area) which is causing them to remodel the plant.
Finally, we visited the prestigious Remy Martin winery, where we were able to taste one of their cognacs. We cannot offer you any photos or videos as filming was not allowed there, but we can recommend a visit if you are ever in the Bordeaux area.
We finish again, thanking Talleres Marsemar, and also Gregoire, for the invitation and the pleasant experience.
