The hard work of harvesting grapes by hand
Day 10: September 11, 2023
Vineyard: Mottura Vini, Campi Salentina, Puglia
Varietal: Negroamaro “Alberello”
We headed back to the Mottura vineyards to get a glimpse of the process of harvesting grapes by hand. Not only is this very labor intensive, but it also takes a long time. Fortunately, at this particular vineyard, there are only 3-4 rows of Negroamaro Alberello vines that have to be harvested by hand. These vines, as noted before, are smaller than the typical Negroamaro vine, and hence is not suitable for machine harvesting.
Also this morning, Teo collected some sample Lambrusco grapes from the vineyard for analysis, to determine the time to harvest those grapes. In Puglia, an IGT quality Negroamaro and Primitivo wine can be blended with up to 15% of Lambrusco grapes. Even though Lambrusco is native to the Emilia-Romagna region, there is a fair amount of it grown here in Puglia a well.
As noted before, the characteristics of grapes change rapidly leading up to the days of harvest. Hence these analyses are very important and are time critical. As always, check out the video 🙂