Grape harvest has arrived
Chelsea Powrie - Sep 13, 2019 - Biz Releases

The harvest season has begun in earnest on Penticton’s Naramata Bench, just the first step in a long road that turns grapes on the vine into bottles of wine.

“I think everyone is just really excited and ready to go, ready to see the grapes come off and get them in the cellars,” Earlco Vineyards vice-president Rebecca Mikulic said.

She said wineries are starting with harvesting grapes for products like sparkling wines, chardonnays, pinot noirs and pinot blancs.

“And then it’s usually the sauvignon blanc that comes off next, some earlier ripening ones, and then it starts to go into some other whites, some gewurztraminers, and then we’ll do some reds.”

It’s a process that will take weeks, and will require huge masses of grapes for each of the dozens of wineries along the bench.

“We produce about 7,500 cases, up to about 10,000, depending on the yield, but about 150 tonnes of grapes,” Three Sisters Winery chief winemaker Matt Mikulic said.

Picking when to harvest is an art of its own and different for every type of grape. Master of Wine Marcus Ansems—one of fewer than 10 people in Canada to have that official, earned title—said his decisions about the harvest at Daydreamer Winery comes down to taste.

“We’ll analyze it in the lab, but to be honest, the best way to do it is just to taste it. We get out into the yard and just taste,” Ansems said. “Sometimes the sugar will come before the flavour. Sometimes the flavour will come before the sugar.”

When the grapes are off the vine, they get transported to a de-vining machine which ensures no prickly plant bits are left over. They’ll then go into a press, and finally the juice is placed in storage cylinders for fermentation.

Harvest time is a happy time of year for everyone on the bench who has spent their summer tending to vines and hoping for a fruitful season. The hope is for dry weather moving forward as the harvest continues into late October.

“We’ve been out there on the tractor and trotting up and down the rows, so for us to be able to harvest is a pretty exciting time,” Ansems said.

The annual Naramata Bench Wineries Association Tailgate Party celebrating harvest takes place on Saturday.


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