At the same time they were divided into their picking teams: red, green, blue and yellow. Each respective team is marshalled by a team leader (Maria, Moos, Hendrik and Dantjie) who oversee the picking and make sure that both efficiency and efficacy are on point. The picking team mostly consist of ladies since they are generally speaking more gentle with the grapes! The gentleman assist in carrying crates of grapes from the pickers to the trailers (normally two carriers per team). At each grape trailer we have two people in charge of removing any leaves that may have crept into the crates.
Unfortunately my camera phone didn't really cope with the lighting situation or lack there of, but in the pic below you can see a leaf QC lady armed with her headlamp making sure that the bins of chardonnay grapes were sans any leaves. The leaves can lead to nasty green flavours in the wine if they aren't removed.
The scene of of all the pickers with their headlights was very sci-fi-esque. The dark silhouette of the Simonsberg mountain above the slopes also contributed to the dramatic quality of the morning.
By about 5:45 the light started to glint onto the Simonsberg (pic below)...
...and by 6ish the sun made an appearance
The chardonnay grapes are destined for both our kosher and our normal sparkling wine. They were whole bunch pressed. The logic behind this is that if you crush chardonnay grapes you release unpleasant phenolic characters into the wine.
Yay, the first day of harvest is under the belt!
SB
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