A few days ago, two vineyard workers drove by, one at the wheel of a grape harvester and the other driving a tractor pulling a trailer. They left a few minutes later with the trailer full of white wine grapes. I assumed the grapes were Chardonnay, which are usually harvested before Sauvignon Blanc or Chenin Blanc grapes. But yesterday I went and looked. I saw many bunches of beautiful grapes up and down rows of Chardonnay vines. So I'm mystified. Why would they leave so many grapes behind?
A day or two later, we saw several cars and vans drive into the vineyard. And then we saw people picking grapes by hand. I know there is one grower, a man who doesn't make wine himself (at least not for sale), but who sells his grapes to a big wine company, who brings in crews to hand-pick grapes. This is his crew.
I went up into the loft and took some photos from a skylight window, where we have a "panoramic" view of the vineyard behind our house. I have a camera with a long zoom.
So here are three photos of the crew at three different zoom levels. Well, it's just one photo, actually, cropped and resized at different levels. The crew of vendangeurs worked for just one day and is gone now, but yesterday the two guys on the harvester and the tractor pulling the trailer came back. They work for a different grower. And they left with another trailer load of white wine grapes. Maybe they got in the rest of the Chardonnay. I'll go out and look this afternoon when I take my walk with Natasha.
I’m wondering the difference between hand-picking and machine-harvesting other than time and money. Any reason you’re aware of why one process is chosen over the other?
ReplyDeletePicking by hand is a more selective process. Only the best bunches of grapes go into the wine. Harvesting by machine means a lot of "non-grape matter" gets mixed in with the grapes — leaves, stems, insects, etc. The fact is that most of the local wineries are too small to have more than a couple of employees. Machine-harvesting is their best option. I'm sure it's not easy to find people willing and available to do the work of grape-picking. I've seen or read reports that there's a shortage of workers in the wine industry. There's an article here. This Figaro article says certain grape varietals, including Pinot Noir, are too delicate to harvest mechanically.
ReplyDeleteThe Figaro article is very interesting and explain why delicate grapes should be harvested by hand. Thank you.
DeleteIn Beaujolais all the grapes are picked by hand because whole bunches go into the fermentation vats. The stems the grapes grow on supposedly give a distinct flavor to Beaujolais wines. In the mechanical harvesting process, the grapes are pulled off the stems, which remain on the vines.
DeleteHere's an interesting blog post on the subject of vendanges manuelles vs. vendanges mécaniques.
DeleteSo, in the wine business, there’s more to it than meets the eye.
DeleteHand harvesting is more time-consuming and labor-intensive, and more costly (although I don't know how the high initial cost of the machine factors into it), but is considered to be better from a quality perspective. However, getting the pickers can be an issue. But some AOPs require that the grapes be hand harvested. I think that Beaujolais and Champagne might be 2 of them, but I'm not sure. And in some areas, such as very hilly areas, machine harvesting is probably impossible.
DeleteKen your comment about Beaujolais is very interesting. I didn't know about or think about the differences between hand versus machine harvesting. Of course your post has me wondering about the grapes left behind in the field from the whole process.
Delete" your post has me wondering about the grapes left behind in the field from the whole process."
DeleteThat's what crows are put on the earth for.
I'm wondering if the remaining Chardonnay grape were not ripe enough for the shaking of the mechanical harvester to make them fall off the stems. I picked some this afternoon and they seemed pretty green, not really ripe.
DeleteOh, I can see why you zoomed in on the grape pickers.
ReplyDeleteWell, I couldn't see details until I looked at the photos on my computer.
DeleteI've been thinking about your sister and niece with Florence headed straight for Morehead. Do they live there or did they just visit to join you when you flew over to see your Mom? Sounds like it's going to be a very dangerous storm.
ReplyDeleteI'm worried. But at least I no longer have to worry about my poor, aged, stubborn mother, who rode out many a storm there in Morehead City NC over her 88 years on Earth. My sister, her daughter and son-in-law, and her three grand-daughters do live there. Plus many cousins on both sides of my family. All I can do is wish them all the best.
ReplyDeleteNews reports in NC are hyperventilating, although there is some thought that it is with good reason. I'm four hours inland, and the grocery stores were out of bottled water yesterday and shelves ransacked. Same today. We'll like get a *lot* of rain if this thing stalls over land. That said, the base of it has moved several degrees of latitude north in the last 24 hours, and it it continues it'll land north of Moorehead, maybe even in Virginia.
DeleteStill, if your relatives can get out they probably should do so. State of emergency in NC and SC, and I don't think they can count on the federal government for an intelligent response just now.
My sister and our cousin (my mother's sister's daughter) are key volunteers at one of Morehead City's food missions, which gives out groceries to people in need. They told me yesterday that they need to stay in town to try to help people in the aftermath of the storm.
DeleteAnother cousin, whose house is two doors down from the house where I grew up and where my mother lived for 54 years, is boarding up his windows and hunkering down. Another cousin said on Facebook that she and her husband are evacuating inland.
What surprised me is the grower who hand harvests but sells to another rather than making wine. I would think that it wouldn't be worth the extra cost and effort, unless the grower gets a premium price because of the hand harvesting.
ReplyDeleteI'll ask him about that the next time I talk to him. He used to sell grapes to a cooperative in Saint-Georges-sur-Cher, over near Montrichard. That organization went out of business. He started hand-harvesting when the Famille Bougrier became his new buyer.
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