Harvest 2012 started early this morning at Coeur de Terre Vineyard. I arrived at 7:15 and the picking crew was already at work. They are picking Sarah Jane's Block. It is one of the steepest in the vineyard. I walk down to the bottom to get a few pictures. Walking back up I am totally winded. The pickers are running up the same slopes, running with two full buckets of picked fruit. I think, man, I'm glad I don't have to do that.
Just then Mauricio walks up and asks me if I'm going with the vineyard workers to "El Chino's" vineyard to pick some Pinot that Scott Neal, the owner of Coeur de Terre is going to make into a sparkling wine. No, I don't think I am. But it turns out I am. "Picking fruit is something you never go to do last year" Scott says. We are headed to Stan's vineyard. He sometimes makes wine in Scott's cellar, but this year he is selling his fruit.
Picking fruit looks so easy. You grab a cluster of fruit with one hand and snip off the fruit with the other. But it is not easy. Especially at this vineyard. The fruit sets are small and we are trying to find the least ripe clusters. They tend to be smaller. I'm also concentrating on only cutting the cluster, not my fingers. That seems easy as well, but it isn't. Half the time I can't find the place the clusters are attached to the vines. It is so slow. I think about the people who do this for a living. They are paid around $1.50 a bucket. I harvest a grand total of five buckets in two hours. That's a big $7.50 for my morning's work. And my back is killing me. This is why I got an education, so I wouldn't have to do this type of work. I'm having post traumatic flashbacks to my middle school days of picking strawberries. 
Back at the winery we are sorting fruit. I take my place at the table and pick out discolored fruit, leaves and the occasional lady bug. Sorting is so easy this year (and MUCH easier than picking fruit.) The fruit is beautiful, with no mildew, and clusters that are almost all totally ripe. This is going to be a very good year for wine in the Willamette Valley. The clusters are smaller in size than last year, but all of this warm, sunny fall weather is making that fruit ripen perfectly.
I now have a much higher appreciation of the people who harvest all of these grapes. I'm so glad I don't have to make my living doing it. It's really made me appreciate leaning over a sorting table all day long. I'll never complain about it again. It's easy.