2013 Grape Harvest

In the past we have helped a family friend bring in their vineyards grape harvest. The phone rang a few weeks back, they were asking if could we would help out. The number of pickers was looking like being low compared to past years and he was in a tight position. They insist on hand picking their hard grown harvest as they find that the quality is much higher when compared to machine harvested grapes.
Naturally we helped out.

The grapes were beautiful!

The location magical and full of friendly faces. Just after dawn the vineyard was a hive of activity with everyone busily sniping the bunches off the vines and carefully placing them in big buckets by the rows side. 

A trusty old farm ute made it way up and down the rows collecting the harvest and transferring the grapes to pallet sized containers for the trip to the winemaker. Not long before lunch the harvest was finished and off to be turned into this years vintage. Shortly after the harvest the weather turned very wet. Luckily the harvest was in before the big wet period hit otherwise the years crop would have been lost.

It is nice to help out friends and also help a small local business.