Wine, Jolly Hard Work.

Appreciating every last sip.

Somehow one could make a case for the white and uhudler harvest just having been a bracing warm up. A few hours of picking, a few kilometers walked and one trailer full of arm-lifts. Well, little did we know how the divine celestial climes have made a difference to the reds.

At short notice seven of us assembled for the ten a.m. start. The sun was making a comeback, the clouds had disappeared and the mood was jubilant in anticipation of this harvest.
Weinlese / wine harvest is always a jolly affair where friends and family meet up for the day.

Honestly, I thought we'd be done and picked by by two but the chief, mum, reminded me of the length of each row and moved the time marker closer to five...Guess what, mums are always right!

Apart from a few dud bunches of grapes, the harvest was a dream due to the abundance and quality of each bunch of red grapes. Our wine is handcrafted, which equates to each of us getting a pair of pruning scissors, two buckets, a shot of Schnapps for good luck and a few rows to harvest. Gosh, I've got to be honest and tell you that it was exhausting work, spending seven hours filling buckets and carrying them up and down the isles between each row of vines, but strangely satisfying as well.

There were so many picture perfect moments to capture with my camera but alas, my hands were sticky from handling the many hundred bunches of grapes. All of us took each filled bucket back to the waiting trailer and when that was filled, a few of us drove to the cellar to start the de-stemming process.

Oh yes, each crate had to be manually lifted off the trailer, carried to the Rebler and lifted up above our heads to be thrown into it. Each crate must have weighed 20 odd kilograms. The grapes had grown with such abundance and vibrancy that we did the trailer run four times. Not surprisingly, after the last run my arms were a tad bit sore.

Taking part in a harvest despite the hard work is a fantastic experience and even more so when one can do a harvest with family. Special moments, precious memories and not to forget, fabulous Blaufränkisch wine not too far in the future.

Biggi