Montepulciano Grape Harvest 2017

It is hard to believe that the Montepulciano grape harvest for 2017 is over! And, almost a whole month earlier than previous years! In one quick week, they are gone! I will definitely miss being able to walk to the vineyard and eat the juicy ripe grapes. But, we work all year for this and it is literally the fruit of our labor! You can see our harvest set up in earlier harvest posts like our Roussanne harvest and I'm sure you remember the saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". So, we use the same set up for each harvest. Harvesting, dumping into the dump cart, filling the winery bins at the barn and finally loading the truck. We work as a family in the vineyard and at harvest. The older boys drive the harvester while John directs the filling of the bins and loading the truck. I never tire of watching the grapes along with their juice fall from either the harvester or dump cart. You can see below just how juicy the grapes of the Montepulciano grape harvest are! Before coming to the vineyard, the trucker stops by the local weigh station to get a tare weight (the weight of the truck without grapes). Once the grapes are loaded onto the 18 wheeler, the truck driver follows me to get the gross weight. The gross weight is the total weight of the truck and the grapes. By subtracting the tare from the gross, we get the net weight which is the weight of the grapes that we are sending to the winery. While I am getting the weights, the boys wash the harvester and clean up continues at the barn. As I shared earlier, we are making our own wine for Oswald Winery that will open next year - Lord willing! Now, we wait not only for the fine wine that the wineries we sell the Montepulciano grapes to make, but we are also waiting for our own! It is definitely exciting times around here!