09 Apr Day 1 of Harvest 2012 at Mountford Estate

Harvest 2012 began today, Monday, April 9th, at Mountford Estate.  We began picking the Pinot Noir from the Gradient Vineyard, which is where one of the single vineyard Pinot Noirs produced by Mountford comes from.

The Gradient Vineyard was planted in 2001 and is on a hill facing North/Northwest. Due to its location, it gets great sun exposure, which is why these are the first vines we will pick during harvest.

We began the morning with our morning tea and meeting of all the pickers.  There were 10 of us picking on this first day and we reviewed the picking process.

We headed out to the vineyard and went right to work.  There are 21 rows of vines in The Gradient and we focused on picking the grapes on the flat part of the vineyard, which is approximately 1/2 of the total vineyard.

As we picked clusters, we gently placed them in the picking bins and then, once full, stacked them up in the shade.

At the end of the day, the filled bins were weighed.  We filled 73 bins and picked 780 kilos (1716 pounds) of Pinot Noir.

With music playing throughout the vineyard, we had a fun day. But, we worked hard and there is still much to do!  We washed our dirty hands and had a great meal and are ready to do it again tomorrow.