Grape Picking and Crushing for Making Wine in Napa

Just back from a fabulous birthday trip to the Napa Valley in California.

More of what we ate and drank in later posts, but I wanted to show you some photos of why October is the best time to travel there.

October is harvest time for the grapes, and there’s plenty to see before your start stumbling in and out of the wineries.

Here are some snaps – kicking myself for not having my video camera on me – of the picking and crushing process…….

Grapes, ripe and juicy and about to be picked!

Pickers start making their way down the vines – in all weathers

Paid by the weight of their quarry, they move very fast until they’ve filled a basket

The grapes are then loaded onto pallets and towed by tractor to the winery

Stacked and awaiting crushing!

They’re then helped into a massive machine and sorted – no feet in sight!

The stalks are then removed by the machine….

….and the grapes fall down a crusher while the stalks….

…..end up being recycled as compost

As someone who’s drunk a LOT of wine in my life, it was real joy to see the actual picking/crushing process in action.

Now I know the work that goes into preparing the grapes, I’ll try not to drink the end result quite so quickly in future!