The month of August is always wild for the vineyard team. From finishing sprays, finalizing crop estimates to fruit thinning, this is the point in the year when we get to cautiously start pumping the breaks in the vineyards. Timing is everything, and we never truly come to a full stop before harvest. There are always tractors, trailers and vehicles that need maintenance to be harvest-ready.

Things To Do List: 

Bins need to be moved to the winery, netting gets put out in the Syrah blocks to protect from the birds, all the smaller projects that had been put on the back burner. But we also make time for breaks to gather together as a team to celebrate the great work that’s been done all year before fully shifting into harvest gear.

Vineyard Specific Details:

Bryan Creek Vineyard: 

Typically the first vineyard to be picked. Adelsheim’s sparkling wines are made 100% from Bryan Creek fruit. 

The sparkling picks are usually pretty fun (and funny). Everyone is so excited to be picking, it’s sort of like “first day of school” energy. There’s always too many people for the amount of fruit being picked, but it’s fun. Makes for a great, easy start to the harvest. Sort of like our practice picks.

Boulder Bluff Vineyard: 

Such an exciting few days of picks. The vineyard has the steepest inclines of all our sites and you really get to see how amazing and strong the team is, running up and downhill all day with buckets full of fruit.

It’s also really tricky moving the fruit out of the vineyard and onto the trucks because of the incline. Our drivers are so experienced and awesome, but I’m anxious for them nonetheless.

Calkins Lane Vineyard:

When we start picking at Calkins, it generally means the vineyard team has to divide to conquer because we’ll be picking at multiple sites on the same day. It’s usually one of our early sites, but is also always the last to finish harvesting because of the Syrah. 

The picks at Calkins always seem to make us scratch our heads. Things just seem to ripen in a way there where you’re constantly bouncing around the vineyard like ping pong.

Behind the Harvest Scenes:
A man standing in front of a bin of freshly harvested Pinot noir.

Harvest is sticky. I love seeing all the familiar faces and seeing them happy.  On the days with the biggest or most difficult picks, we’ll buy the teams lunch – they more than earn/deserve it. I’m always happy to do it and glad to see that it makes them so happy!

The help from everyone on AV staff is absolutely mind-blowing. The fact that our CEO and fearless leader, Rob Alstrin (pictured above), and so many others are completely dedicated to getting this fruit into the winery with us makes me so proud to work here.

It’s also just very fun to be out together on the beautiful harvest mornings. There are so many incredible sunrises, shooting stars, animal sightings, you name it. Plus, we bring our JBL speakers everywhere so the jams be jammin. And the jokes are just nonstop with the crew, anyway.

Ariel Day, Vineyard Manager, picking pinot noir

Another favorite part of harvest, for me, is getting the fruit weights in after it’s received at the winery. Ivan and I work SO hard for months putting an estimate together, which then gets used to decide how much fruit we’re going to remove – and when the estimates come in and they’re dead on, it’s a feeling like no other. For me at least. The guys started calling me “Bruja” (meaning “witch” in Spanish) my first year because the estimates came in so close. We’ll see soon how we did! Surprisingly, one of the hardest things to do during harvest is keep track of the number of bins per block.

Maybe I just have a squirrel brain, but there’s so many moving parts and I’m constantly going back and forth between that it’s really easy to lose track. We all joke with each other because we all get it wrong at least once – usually three people are keeping track! We also all forget what day of the week it is after a certain point. The days blur together and life is never-ending laundry and glove-washing. But it’s awesome, and every day is a reason to celebrate, because another block made it across the finish line. Fewer and fewer worries every day…allegedly.

Ariel Daly- Adelsheim Vineyard Manager (pictured)