🌿 Machine harvesting

Machine harvesting is picking grapes with a machine that shakes the vine so that the berries fall into a hopper. It is the opposite of hand picking, when people cut the grapes. It works like this. A grape harvester drives over a row of vines. Flexible rods shake the vine, berries come off the clusters and fall onto a belt. They are then cleaned of leaves and bits of stem and moved to a hopper. The machine can work at night, when the berries are cool and the grapes oxidise less. Advantages: speed, low cost and the ability to bring in the crop on time before the weather turns. One harvester replaces dozens of pickers. Disadvantages: berries are damaged, more leaves and debris get into the grapes, and whole clusters are not kept. The machine needs even rows and suitable vine pruning. So the machine is not used for sparkling wines, which are pressed as whole clusters, nor on steep slopes. For the best wines hand picking often remains. But on large farms in Australia, California and Europe machine harvesting is very common. It is one of the ways of bringing in the crop.