Harvest Update: Part 1

It starts in the vineyard...

The anticipation is finally over, harvest is in full swing and busier then ever.  We had a bit of a late start this year, but after weeks of eagerly checking the brix (sugar) levels of the grapes we started picking.  So how did we get to this point?  At Fidelitas we source fruit from all over the Columbia Valley, this means we let the growers do the work of producing outstanding fruit and we take care of making it into outstanding wine.  With each vineyard we have a contract for certain rows or tons of grapes and then it is a talk between the grower and the winemaker on when the grapes should get picked when they will be at their optimum ripness.  All the grapes are picked by hand in order to insure the best quality fruit is all that goes to the winery.  Small clusters like the one shown below, are normally dropped (on the ground) because they came from the secondary bud.  This secondary bud will produce fruit if the primary bud was damaged but the cluster is usually much smaller, late-ripening, and lacks some flaver.

Workers pick the grapes into small bins that can be counted and sorted and put into larger bins the winery supplies to travel back to the production facility.  You'll be seeing a lot of these bins coming up, as they get used for many functions.   

These pickers are very speedy so they may move from one block and one winery to another pretty quickly, unlike the rest of us that might finish half by the time the day is up!

And, of course, the grower inspects everything before the grapes get loaded on a truck and sent off to the winery for processing and for the real magic to begin.  

Stay tuned for Part 2 where we will talk about what happens once the grapes hit the production facility and a wrap up of Harvest 2011!

See you next time,

Kalen Holden-Boushey

Wine Consultant + Wine Club Correspondent