Harvest Photo Essay: Wine is a Grape

We went out to Harmony Hill on Sunday for harvest. Unfortunately, we got there a little too late for picking (they had those grapes picked fast!) but I did manage to get some great photos of the ultimate juicing machine. Harmony Hills uses a destemmer and a bladder press to squeeze the juice from their grapes. The juice, in a small bin, then travels through a hose to a tank. This process is called "crush" (for obvious reasons).

The red grapes aren't yet ready for harvest, so hopefully we'll be in town and available when that happens. I'd love to experience picking the grapes. My big thanks to Bill and Patti who managed to be incredibly hospitable hosts in the middle of crush. To view the entire process, you can visit my Flickr set.

These photos are a great reminder of two things I believe people often forget when they drink wine: wine is a grape, and a vineyard is a farm.


Harvested Vines


Retrieving grapes from the vineyard


Freshly picked

Dumping grapes into the destemmer

Stems falling off

Grapes entering the bladder press

Juice goes from the press to the bin to the hose to the tanks

Skins after being squeezed of juice

Attaching the hose to the correct tank

Red grapes (chambourcin?) not quite ready for harvest

Hopefully, we have a slideshow here of all 47 photos from Flickr. (You might be better off visiting the Flickr set itself.)