Winehaven Completes 2024 Grape Harvest with Mechanical Harvester

Since opening in 1995, Winehaven has always picked our grapes by hand.  This year, that changed as we acquired a new French-built grape harvesting machine.  A row of grapes used to take two people at least two hours to pick.  Now, we can pick the same row in about 60 seconds.  Mechanical harvesting is incredibly efficient because the grapes go from being on the vine to crushed and into a tank within the span of a half an hour.  

Our harvester is amazing!  It straddles a row of grapes while shaking the vine to cause the berries to fall off the stem.  Conveyer belts carry the fruit into two bins on the shoulders of the machine.  Along the way, there are a few high speed fans that remove the leaves and other debris that may have fallen from the vines along with the fruit.  

We are lucky that our estate vineyard is a short distance from the winery.  We are able to receive grapes that are cool, fresh, and mostly still whole.  There is no doubt that the short time between picking the grapes and getting them into the winery preserves their quality which yeilds an even better wine.