Pickin' grapes (pics)

[chowhound]

Here's a series of pics I snapped out the front window yesterday. This is how they pick grapes around here. Basically what you see is a tractor mounted on top of a thrashing type machine. It's hard to see how tall this is from the pics, but the pickers that have shade canopies on them have been know to pull down my phone line... The picker straddles the rows and beats the vines, knocking the bunches of grapes onto a conveyor that carries them up and over the row. A tractor pulling a trailer with two or three wooden bins on it follows. There is also a tractor waiting, so when the one has a full load, the other one takes over. The full tractor heads to an area where a forklift will place the bins onto a tractor trailer, then give him more empty bins to bring back. The tractor trailer heads to Welch's, which is a couple miles away. You see a lot of tractors, tractor trailers and tri-axle dump trucks on the country roads this time of year. The dump trucks are used to carry the "pumice", or smashed grapes back to the fields after Welch's presses the usable fruit and juice out of the skin. Some farmers spread this pumice back into their fields, but others do not want it back because it could carry disease or parasites from another farmer's field to theirs.
Welch's has their people randomly testing the bins for sugar content with a prod type tool, but don't think that there isn't a certain amount of "blending" going on. This is where the farmers get together and help one another out, mixing grapes of a low sugar content with those of a higher one. But you didn't hear this from me
In another week and all through winter there will be workers retying the vines by hand to the cable stretched between the poles.

 

[buzzard767]

And here I had envisioned a bunch of little old Italian ladies picking by hand, crushing with bare feet, and a goateed fella tasting the finished product. Progress, that's what it is. lol

 

[chowhound]

And here I had envisioned a bunch of little old Italian ladies picking by hand, crushing with bare feet, and a goateed fella tasting the finished product. Progress, that's what it is. lol

Believe it or not, Buzz, Juan Valdez doesn't pick your coffee beans either.

 

[Fisher's Mom]

And your Cuban cigars aren't really rolled on the warm brown thighs of young maidens.

 

[smoke king]

And your Cuban cigars aren't really rolled on the warm brown thighs of young maidens.

YES THEY ARE.

 

[buzzard767]

And your Cuban cigars aren't really rolled on the warm brown thighs of young maidens.

What!!!!

 

[Fisher's Mom]

Errr - I could be wrong about the warm brown thighs thing.......

 

[chowhound]

And your Cuban cigars aren't really rolled on the warm brown thighs of young maidens.

Wait a minute! I know I have pics of this somewhere... They are, too!

 

[bowlingshirt]

And your Cuban cigars aren't really rolled on the warm brown thighs of young maidens.

I heard the Clinton brand cigars are done this way, but this seems a little fishy to me.......

 

[chowhound]

I heard the Clinton brand cigars are done this way, but this seems a little fishy to me.......

Are those the ones that come with the end pre-moistened?

 

[Meme4251]

Really enjoyed the informative post there Chow. We do not have any grape farmers down here. The closest to a grape would be the "dewberry" which jellys, pies, and cobblers are made of. Some people ask if you have made any grape jelly this year and they are meaning dewberry and BTW, these are all picked by hand. No commercial farming like what you have. Neat to see...Again, enjoyed...Meme

 

[Miniman]

Oh Dear Chow