Harvesting

Grapes are harvested from vineyards and they are the primary ingredients for making wine. The grapes must be fresh and fully ripened for them to be the preferred raw material for wine making.

Because of the effect upon grape composition, proper timing of the harvest is of great importance. Premature harvesting results in thin, low-alcohol wines. Late harvesting may yield high-alcohol, low-acid wines. Harvesting may be completed in one picking or in several. The grape clusters are cut from the vine and placed in buckets or boxes and then transferred to larger containers (large tubs in Europe, metal gondola trucks in California and elsewhere) for transport to the winery. Mechanical harvesting systems, based on shaking the berries from the clusters or on breaking the stems, are widely used in California, Australia, France, and elsewhere.

At the winery the grapes may be dumped directly into the crusher or may be unloaded into a sump and carried to the crusher by a continuous conveyor system.