Mellea Winery, Massachusetts
Photo Album: October 1999

Dateline: 10/04/99

At huge wineries, harvest time is like watching an anthill in the autumn. There are scores of workers, well orchestrated activity, marching columns carrying the grapes back to the central warehouse. In contrast, harvest at a small winery is more like a beautiful quartet being played by master musicians - personal, attentive, and very satisfying.

I went out to Mellea Winery on a Saturday to watch a harvest in action. The winemakers went out into the fields with bins and scizzors, and went from vine to vine, snipping each bunch of grapes with care, weeding out the bad grapes, checking them for imperfections.

The grapes were in perfect condition - the long drought had stressed the vines, causing them to produce grapes of lovely color and sweetness. Perhaps the only flaw in the season had been the untimely arrival recently of Hurricane Floyd - the extra water it brought ended up diluting the grapes' flavor a bit.

The bins of grapes were carried down to the winery, where they were fed into a destemmer. This machine kicks out the stems, skins, and seeds to the right of the picture, sending the juice through a tube into the white holding tank you see in the background.

In another week I'll let you know how the wine is progressing - you can learn about what steps white grapes go through in order to become wine!

Mella Winery Main Page