Late Thursday night, into Friday morning we harvested 45 tons of Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon with a Pellenc mechanical harvester. This new harvester collects amazingly clean grapes, made even better with a optical sorter which removes any flawed berries and MOG ("Materials Other than Grapes, primarily leaves and stems).
Photo 1: Just after the crescent moon set on the night of Thurs 10/18, we began setting up to harvest AV Cab blocks 3 and 4 from our Red Ranch. Here, the Pellenc harvester is getting ready to begin the night's work. Photo 2: Mechanical harvesters work by vibrating the berries off the rachis. This is a vine just stripped of its berries. Photo 3: Many harvesters require that the tractors drive in tandem to collect the grapes. The Pellenc has on-board tanks that will hold the grapes until they're ready to go into the bins. Looking like a real-life Transformer, the Pellenc lifts the tanks up and out to dump the grapes. Photo 4: After the grapes come in from the vineyard, they are dumped into the Gimbre. Yes, that is our Alexander Valley tasting room in the background. Photo 5: Holding about 1.5 tons, it takes about 30 min to completely empty the Gimbre onto the sorting table, dropping just a few grapes at a time. Photo 6: The lighted bar is the where the berries are sorted. If the sensitive camera detects a pink berry, piece of a leaf, etc., a blast of air will divert it from the main stream and it will be culled to the side in the "bad grape" bin. Photo 7: Winemaker Jeff Hinchliffe and Christine Hanna check the quality of the first sorted bin-beautiful.
