Last year I replied a little too late to the call for volunteers at one of our favorite wineries, Torr Na Lochs. I had waited for Hubby to reply yes or no to the email. When I told that to Karen, one of the owners, she said to just say yes next time - you can always say no if you can't make it. Slots for volunteer harvesters are limited because its something a lot of people enjoy doing, including us!
We spent the night at Highlands and were up at the break of dawn, heading to the winery with our gloves and clippers, just a few miles away.
Once it gets light enough to see and we get our instructions, we can get started!
There were about 40 volunteers - most of us have done this gig before and we knew to wear sturdy tennies and a hat!
We signed our waivers, grabbed a banana or two, got our instructions from Karen and Blake, and got started on the harvest - Malbec, today.
The fruit was beautiful! We harvested a little over 5 tons of it in 3 1/2 hours.
These pics don't show how thick the bees were! Its the first harvest they've descended on harvesters like that. Mostly you were fine if you didn't swat at them, but several folks got stung. Thankfully, not Hubby or I! Luckily, a couple of the volunteers were also bee keepers and they were able to help us work around them.
You work one row at a time, someone on either side of the vines, then move to the next row. Blake comes along with his tractor to dump your bucket of grapes in giant bins, giving you back an empty bucket and you keep going! One of the wheels actually fell off the tractor! (Funny, but not funny. Guess he's getting a new tractor!)
Just when I thought it was just about too hot to continue, we were done! I guess folks who work outside get heat acclimated. But I noticed several volunteers that were struggling. The winery owner's grandchildren were handing out bottles of water until one of them got stung, then all of them were sent inside..so the last couple of hours, no one was handing out water. A snag they probably need to work on for next time! At least no one cut themselves with the clippers, which is something Blake says always happens.
The bins are loaded into the winery in prep for the crush.
There were still bees everywhere! But isn't all of that fruit gorgeous? They get started on processing it right away.
Lunch was wine and pizza on the patio, followed by group photos and a t-shirt pick-up. Hubby and I were fairly worn out, but it was fun and rewarding! We both work in comfy A/C, so we aren't exactly used to farm life, and I think we will keep our Monday through Friday jobs! We ate our pizza and headed over to Highlands to rest up. Next weekend: Perissos is harvesting Tempranillo and Touriga and we will be there!
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