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An Insider's Look at Harvest
October 14, 2022
It’s no surprise that harvest is the winemaker’s favorite and most critical season––after all, it’s the rare job that only gives you one chance per year to get it right. From this moment forward, it’s up to the winemaking team to take what the vineyard delivers and turn it into the best wine they can make.
But what really happens during harvest? In short, the grapes are removed from the vine and brought to the winery to be guided through the fermentation process. But within that simple explanation, there are hundreds of decisions and judgment calls for the winemaking team to make––some of them critical to the quality of the finished wine, others influential on the style of the wine being made, and still others important for the long-term health of the cellar and the team.
Here’s a backstage look at the key players and events that make up harvest. As for my credentials: during my 15 years in the wine industry, I’ve worked harvests in New York's Niagara region, Southern Wisconsin, Stellenbosch in South Africa, and the Willamette Valley of Oregon. I’m a subpar forklift operator, but I enjoy digging out tanks enough that my coworkers once joked that I should be given a shovel as a parting gift. Working harvest is one of my favorite things.
How does the winemaker know when to kick off harvest?
Once the grapes are picked, they can’t ripen further or develop additional flavor on their own, so the pick date is a crucial decision for the winemaker. (Check out What the Vines Tell Us for more on what winemakers look for in the vineyard during this time.) Winemakers seek balance between sugar levels in the grapes, which increase during the end of the growing season, and acidity, which decreases at the same time. They also look for flavor development, which relies heavily on sensory analysis––actually tasting the grapes and evaluating characteristics like the flavors in the skins, the nature of the tannins, and the texture of the seeds.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Some wine regions enjoy predictably mild weather during harvest, but such lucky regions are the exception rather than the rule. Dodging rain storms, autumn frost, weather-induced diseases such as mildew, and heat waves isn’t easy, but the winemaker’s greatest skill is to adapt to a constantly changing environment in order to make the best wine possible.
There are practical issues to consider, too. Does the forecast on your ideal pick date call for a downpour and thunderstorm? That’s going to compromise the quality of the grapes, and could pose a safety hazard. Can you find a picking crew on the day you want to pick? If everything’s getting ripe at once and there’s high demand in your region, pickers may have limited availability. Is all your equipment in working order? Let’s hope so––it won’t be easy to get urgent repair service when every winery in the area is equally busy. Oh, and keep in mind that different grape varieties, vineyards, and even blocks within a single vineyard can ripen at completely different times, so you’d better have space and containers in your cellar ready to receive fruit throughout the season.
Is your head spinning yet? If you ever have a chance to meet with a winemaker during harvest, consider bringing strong coffee.
Who Works at Harvest?
The Picking Team
Whether grapes are picked by hand or by machine depends on a variety of factors, including the quality and style of the wine, the grape variety, the weather conditions, the site, and the size of the crop being harvested. Human labor is still needed in either case. With a mechanized harvest, only a few people may be necessary, but they must have expertise in operating the machinery and experience carrying out the winemaker’s instructions. When the grapes are being harvested by hand, a larger team is needed. Ideally they will work quickly yet carefully in order to bring the grapes in before the hottest part of the day without damaging them. In regions prone to rain and disease pressure at harvest, pickers are likely to be asked to select only the healthiest-looking clusters––demanding extra time, skill, and energy. Some wineries use the same picking team every year; others put out a call for picking assistance in late summer or use the assistance of an agency or government program to find a crew.
The Core Winemaking Team
Every winery has a year-round production staff led by a winemaker and, usually, an assistant or associate winemaker. Depending on the size of the winery there may also be a cellarmaster, a lab technician and even additional winemakers for separate product categories. The winemaker and winemaking team are responsible for the success of harvest and the delivery of the resulting wines from barrel or tank to bottle. Even the smallest wineries’ core teams can’t typically handle the entire harvest alone, so they hire and manage a group of seasonal workers known as the harvest interns.
Harvest Interns
When reading about your favorite winemakers’ backgrounds or chatting with your local wine bar’s staff, you are likely to encounter the concept of working a harvest. This is the winery equivalent of the kitchen world’s stage tradition, and the closest the wine industry gets to Anthony Bourdain’s “pirate crew” analogy for his kitchen: a band of young-ish people who have been chosen, often from wine regions around the world, to come to a given winery for the harvest season and supply the much-needed additional labor required to turn the grapes into wine.
Harvest interns, sometimes affectionately known as “cellar rats,” usually have some winemaking, farming or brewing experience and are looking to expand their wine knowledge while experiencing a new part of the world. In exchange for a season of reliable pay, meals and often lodging at the hosting winery, they bring knowledge from their home region, a high tolerance for sleep deprivation, diverse musical tastes (leading to arguments over control of the cellar’s bluetooth speaker), an impressive spread of food and wine-related tattoos, varying degrees of “forklift jenga” prowess and, above all, a passion for winemaking. A strong sense of harvest camaraderie bands them together and can result in lifelong friendships. Because working harvest is so educational––and, frankly, so much fun––aspiring winemakers will often “chase harvest” for a few years at a time, working with producers in the Northern and Southern hemispheres back-to-back to maximize and diversify their work experience.
It’s not unusual for a mid-season harvest intern to have the current temperatures and Brix levels on several tanks memorized, but struggling to remember what day it is. Numbers are everywhere this time of year. Before picking, harvest crews take vineyard samples and analyze them or send them to a professional lab; the sugar and acid levels, among other numbers, help the winemaker decide when to harvest. When the grapes are received and begin to ferment, the crew monitors each vessel’s sugar level as the yeast converts the sugar into alcohol. Temperature has a direct effect on the pace and health of fermentation, so the team keeps a close watch on that, too. Other key numbers during harvest include the pressure level when the grapes are being pressed, analysis of chemical compounds in the wine, precise measurement of additions like yeast and sulfites, and numerical codes for each lot so the winemaker can track its progress until it’s time to make final blends.
Filling things
Wineries deal with constant space constraints and a limited number of containers, so figuring out where to put everything during harvest is a non-trivial task. On the crushpad, red grapes are typically (though not always) destemmed and then crushed so they can acquire color, structure and flavor from their skins during fermentation. Then they go into a vessel, such as a tank or large oak cask, for anywhere from five days to two or three weeks for fermentation. Next, the fermented wine goes into a press to separate the liquid from the grape skins. Finally, it is transferred to a barrel or tank for settling or aging prior to bottling. White grapes are typically pressed shortly after reaching the winery, then fermented over a longer time period (often several weeks) before the resulting wine is moved to a tank or barrel. Each step requires the harvest crew to communicate well and work efficiently––there is rarely just one thing happening in the cellar at a time!
Punching things
No, it’s not Harvest Fight Club. “Punchdowns” are essentially a method of stirring fermenting red wine to ensure the thick layer of skins that forms at the top of the container, called the “cap”, stays wet and in contact with the juice to promote color, tannin, flavor, and structure. This classic harvest intern task involves standing on a catwalk, a wooden board or even the side of the tank while using a tool that might look like a giant potato masher (or a large metal circle on the end of a stick) to push down the cap and mix it into the fermenting juice. It’s an excellent workout, especially considering it’s not unusual to have an entire cellar full of tanks that require twice-daily punchdowns at the peak of harvest. Another common way to stir the fermenting wine is a “pumpover,” whereby juice is extracted from the bottom of the tank and sprayed over the top using a pump.
Emptying things
Visit a winery during harvest and you might catch an amusing sight: a barefoot harvest intern standing in a tank in swimming trunks or gym shorts, knee-deep in red grape skins and juice, using a shovel to push the tank’s contents out so they can be pressed. It’s hard and messy work, but wine production folks pride themselves on their tank-digging skills. (Don’t worry––they sanitize their feet first.) Moving juice and wine from one container to another can often feel like a never-ending cycle during harvest, but once the last lot of wine gets “pressed off,” or removed from its skins and transferred to its aging or settling container, the team can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the rush is over.
Cleaning
I recently conducted an informal poll asking production-oriented wine professionals on Instagram to estimate what percentage of winemaking is simply cleaning. Results averaged 80% to 85%. While this may sound like an exaggeration by somebody who’s just had to spend hours scrubbing the sides of a tank, no winemaker would deny that cleaning is absolutely essential to quality winemaking. Proper hygiene in the cellar prevents the growth of bacteria and wild yeast, protecting the quality of the vintage and the long-term health of the cellar. While it’s not the most romantic aspect of making wine, cleaning has its simple pleasures: every cellar rat has experienced the meditative transcendence that is power-washing a driveway under a harvest sunset.
Team building
“Work hard, play hard” is the motto of most harvest crews. While 60 to 90-hour weeks of grueling work are not uncommon at the height of the season, wineries put significant effort into keeping spirits high. Some wineries hire a chef to cook elaborate meals for the staff on-site; field trips to neighboring wineries for a tour and tasting are also popular. A well-timed crush pad dance party, a team singalong during punchdowns, or simply a can of cold beer after unclogging the destemmer can go a long way. As harvest winds down, it’s tradition to gather harvest interns together for a party (often combining teams from several wineries) to open special bottles and toast the end of the season.
An amazing amount of work goes into harvest––and you can taste the results through an educational experience with one of Sommsation’s partner wineries. Explore them here.
