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Update: We picked the Pinot Noir grapes yesterday. 

By "we" I mean a crew of four people I have hired for the job. I am not a picker. My job is to pay the workers, not to supervise them. 

This picker and supervisor, Adelberto Paz, clips off clusters of grapes from the cane wire, the wire at 31 inches in height.  The vines are pruned and tied so that the harvestable grapes are all at a similar level. Adelberto works from left to right. He puts the grapes into lightweight five-gallon buckets, which he then dumps into the bins on the trailer behind the tractor. This plant took him about 30 seconds to pick clean. 

We planted the grape rows nine feet apart. This is wider than many vineyards, but my thinking was that it would make it easier to manage. A tractor would get down the rows, as would the trailer holding the bins. 

The winemakers at Valley View Vineyards tell me they will keep these grapes separate from the grapes they grow at their own vineyard. There would be separate fermentation; separate aging barrels; and therefore, potentially, separate label and branding. How the wine is bottled and sold depends on whether the unusual terroir of the vineyard's pumice soil creates a wine that is distinct and superior. That would be nice. But it is farming, so who knows?

I will have wine to sell in about two years.

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