Harvest time!
Hold onto your hat! Its time to harvest!!
This morning we woke up to farmers in our vineyard. We have just over 4600sqm of Moscato vines which take about 4 hours to harvest with 10 to 12 farmers doing the job. Franco, our wonderful neighbour and the manager of our vines, does amazing work with his team.
Harvest is very, very early this year. We usually see our grapes being picked from mid to late September. This year’s talk around the region was that vines would be picked early to mid September and yet today in August, it’s all hands on deck! This year has been so very different. Rain was scarce throughout Winter so the grapes have ripened much sooner. The past Winter only produced about 2 weeks of snow and very little rain so neither the vines nor the nocciola (hazelnut) orchards have had nearly enough water. The grapes are much smaller than last year and the soil is hard and dry. Its been an unbelievably hot Summer. All very good reasons why the harvest is so early.
Pippo joins us for harvest. He is Franco’s scruffy white dog who is always the precurser to Franco’s arrival. Pippo and Tash are great mates. We were also joined by Pedro, who lives next door to Pippo. He is new on the scene. The three dogs are wonderful to watch and especially when there is so much activity in the vineyards. They think all the fuss is just for them.
A harvest is always great to watch and there is the constant reminder of what the current season is because of the farm traffic on the roads. Huge tractors towing great big trailors completely loaded with the latest harvests fly past like small hurricanes. You’d swear these guys had mistaken their tractors for dune buggies.
Harvest is still exciting to us. It turns into a bit of a celebration, as even after almost 4 years here, we still love the interaction with all of the farmers who are our neighbours. These people work so very hard but they always have something nice to say. We think they find us amusing as we get so excited about normal things like picking grapes.
We have everything crossed for an awesome vintage. We’ve been told that it will be really good but definitely very different.