Tuesday, August 7, 2012

This year in Italy the harvest grape starts early


It's august and it's already time to harvest in Italy. In fact this summer the warm weather has done good things for the coming grape harvest. Hot days and cool nights have brought in an early crop and some vintners in the north have already begun collecting their white wine grapes.
Farmer’s organizations like Coldiretti (main italian organization) have predicted that if the current weather holds the yield will be large enough to maintain Italy’s position as the largest wine producer in the world.

Wine grapes

The harvesting of wine grapes is one of the most crucial steps in the process of winemaking
Traditional hand-harvesting and mechanical harvesting are the two routes that a winery can take to get the grapes off the vine and ready for crush. Hand-harvesting affords more precise selection and tends to do a better job of protecting the grape’s juice content from oxidation due to damaged skins. Mechanical harvesters allow for a more efficient, often cost-effective, process and are well-suited for large vineyards that lay on a flat patch of earth. The type of harvest - hand-picking, mechanical harvesters or a combination of the two, is largely influenced by the winemaker’s final wine style goals.