Language lessons

So, it's not uncommon for somebody to say something to me and for me not to understand one or two words that are being said. There are some regional dialect issues from time to time, for example the word I'd learned at Gourgonnier for 'hose' was 'tuyau,' which the dictionary defines as pipe or tube. Here they also use the word 'manche' which the dictionary defines as 'handle,' which can be confusing when they use the same word to refer to a hose as to refer to the handle of a shovel.
So, today, Nicholas was trying to tell me to do something, the conversation went something like this:
Nicholas: Can you take 1 kilo of tartaric acid and put it in cuve 33 in a (word I don't know)
Me: A (word I don't know)?
Nicholas: (word I don't know) like women wear
Me: What?
Nicholas: Like woman's underwear, you know?
Me: I put on woman's underwear?
Nicholas: No, you put the acid in the (word I don't know) like women wear (mime running hands up and down leg)
Me: I don't understand.
Nicholas: Come here, I'll show you.
Me: I'm scared.
(we walk into the lab, Nicholas pulls a stocking from a box)
Nicholas: This is a stocking.
Me: Oh! A stocking!
Nicholas: You put the powdered acid inside, and put it in the top of the cuve.
Me: Ok, I understand. I thought you were asking me to do something very gay.

I also went to Bressades with Cyril today for tasting and to see the winery. It's a bit smaller than Carlot, they have about half the acreage in vines, but it's very cleverly arranged, with all the metal cuves for primary fermentation on top of the concrete ones, so the grapes are pumped in, then the wine is fed by gravity into the lower cuves when primary fermentation is complete.
It's almost dinnertime now, I was supposed to go to Nimes with Cyril and Nathalie, but their babysitter got sick, so we're eating at their house.