FARM SCENE: Some Vintners Picking Grapes After Dark

AP ^ | Oct 10, 2005 | Michelle Locke

[Jet Jaguar]

ANNAPOLIS, Calif. (AP) - A vineyard here smells different at night. The daytime dust is damped down by the faintly brackish fog rolling in from the Pacific.

Above, stars blaze in black velvet; at ground-level, the white glare of fluorescent lights outlines the silhouettes of farmworkers moving swiftly in the shadows.

Definitely not your typical harvest scene, but one that's becoming increasingly common as more vintners try picking wine grapes after dark.

"It's better at night," said Fermin Manzo, foreman of the crew picking pinot noir grapes for Hartford Family Wines on a recent crisp, fall night.

The advantage to night harvest is that temperatures are lower, good for both grapes and workers.

In the day, grapes that end up sitting in bins under the hot sun can start to ferment by themselves - not a good thing. Meanwhile, workers run the risk of heat-related illnesses if they try to work a full shift. "They'll pick just maybe four hours and they'll be tired," said Manzo. "At night you go slower, but you can work longer."

Hartford Family Wines vineyard manager Walt Chavoor likes the fact that crews can go longer and make more money. And he's happier with the results of their work, too. "I am convinced that one of the most crucial things we can do for wine quality is to bring fruit in cold," he said.

Of course, visibility is the big challenge to night farming.

The key to overnight success is getting enough lights ready and meticulously planning which rows are going to be picked so there's no fumbling around in the dark, said Sonoma County vineyard owner Saralee Kunde, who has switched to doing about two-thirds of harvest at night.

"Everybody wants cold fruit. This way we can satisfy everyone," she said. "And it's so much nicer on the guys. Our crew is much happier picking at night."

Picking at night by machine - the way most fruit on the state's half million or so acres of wine grape acreage is picked - has been common for some years, said John Miles, an agriculture engineer at the University of California, Davis.

What's new is that smaller, boutique-style wineries that rely on hand-picking, which they believe yields higher quality fruit, have been joining the night owls. There aren't any hard figures on the trend, but Miles said a very rough estimate might be as much as 10 percent of the hand-picked harvest is coming in at night.

Night picking won't work everywhere; the ground needs to be relatively flat and the vines trained to grow so that the grapes are easily visible.

From a distance, night harvesting lends an eerie glow to quiet fields.

Up close, nature and machine set up dueling symphonies, crickets chirping as the tractors rumble along in bass.

Vineyards use different methods, but at Hartford Family Wines, the darkness is dispelled by a big metal stand studded with fluorescent tubes that is dragged along the rows by a trailer.

As they do in the day, pickers work with a practiced rhythm, stripping the vines of ripe fruit and tossing full bins of the gleaming black grapes into waiting containers.

Vintner Mike Moone, an aptly named fan of night harvesting, likes the concept so much he recently threw a party at his Luna Vineyards in Napa where workers and guests picked pinot grigio grapes as a huge harvest moon sailed above.

Said Moone with a smile, "Night time's the right time."

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On the Net:

National Association of American Wineries:

http://www.wineamerica.org

AP-ES-10-10-05 0353EDT

[geezerwheezer]

Must be why folks like drinking wine at night!! :0)

[battlegearboat]

"It's time to relax."

[WIladyconservative]

Bella Serra . . . .

[Gondring]

This makes too much sense....it's unnatural and unAmerican, like telecommuting and private offices. Something must be done to knock the productivity back down, fast!

[wolfcreek]

I heard, it's better to harvest other crops (such as MJ) during a full autumn moon.