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.
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| 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.
