With the ongoing and worsening labor shortages being experienced throughout CA, there is no doubt that more and more vineyards are going to have to turn to machine work for their viticultural needs - from pre-pruning to leafing to harvesting.
One more ‘wrinkle’ in this whole thing - as marijuana production ramps up in areas near wine grapes (like Lompoc, for instance), the labor issues will become even more exacerbated:
Trefethen won the trophy for its chardonnay in the Gault Milau Olympiade of wine back in the 70s. The grapes were machine harvested. I’ve seen machine harvesting in Burgundy.
Mel,
Yep, it’s been used throughout the world for quite some time. I’m wondering what % of the top Australian grapes have been and continue to be picked by machine.
There’s always been ‘push back’ here in the US, even though the technology has continued to improve. With labor shortages becoming ‘the norm’ these days, we will see more of this at all price and quality levels moving forward out of necessity . . .
Cheers!
Indeed, newer vineyards will be planted to facilitate the process.
This is old news. Pairing machine harvesting with optical sorters largely negates the advantage of hand picking. Only hand harvested fruit in the future will be from impossible to walk mountain vineyards. If we can put a probe on Mars, I think we can figure out a way to even modify a machine to pick on a modestly sloped vineyard. Hand harvesting is quaint and romantic, but so was harvesting wheat with a scythe. Back here in the East, nobody picks by hand, virtually everything is harvested by machine.
Dennis,
The concept has been around, but the use on higher-end fruit outside of Australia has not been regularly employed.
A couple of challenges with machine picked fruit are the greater possibility of crushed or broken grapes leading to earlier oxidation then one might want and the lack of collection of stems.
For the time being, it will still be plenty of hand harvested fruit in many places, including in Santa Barbara County. I guess we’ll see what happens over the next few years though.
I understand, yet is not the rapid collection of the grapes by machine an equalizer? I understand that the newer picking machines are gentler than ever and the less time the wine sits in collection crates in the field is a major advantage to machine work, as they are always going to be faster than humans. Faster to the winery may be better. As to “high end” wine results, you may be a little cali centric. Taste some Bachelder Chardonnay, Stratus cab franc from Ontario or Pearl Morrisette Riesling. Cool climate does not mean “low end” wine my friend!
Anyway this will be a moot point if the labor issues continue to get more critical. Grape picking is beastly labor.
The lack of whole cluster/stems is a big issue for many types of smaller production wines. It’ll be interesting to see when/if machine harvest adapts to handle whole cluster. Assuming it does, I’d bet that chardonnay is what pushes that, since I expect there’s more volume/dollars behind whole cluster pressed Chard than whole cluster fermented reds (even considering Pinot)…this is just a wild guess tho.
The other issue is there will be more mainstream pick dates, with smaller producers having a limited ability to call their own picks. Smaller vineyards have always benefited from the labor pool that serves nearby large/huge vineyards…i.e. the small vineyards get picked by folks that are in between large picks. The move to machine pick means that labor pool will disappear and won’t be available for smaller vineyards. That’ll make hand picks increasingly expensive, which will push wineries towards mainstream pick dates (by machine).
Depending on how these things take shape, there’s a risk we’ll be moving a more uniform & less interesting/varied world. These will probably get resolved with time, but looks like it’d take a while.
Another advantage to the automated grape harvester is that for those along the eastern seaboard the threat of tropical storms and hurricanes can allow for a quick harvest ahead of the storm.
One disadvantage with harvesters is that spoilage contamination can be a problem if the machinery is not well sanitized between harvests.
Smaller vineyards have always benefited from the labor pool that serves nearby large/huge vineyards…i.e. the small vineyards get picked by folks that are in between large picks. The move to machine pick means that labor pool will disappear and won’t be available for smaller vineyards.
But Eric - wouldn’t the same thing apply with machines? If the machines are picking the big vineyards, they won’t be available to pick the smaller ones, unless those guys book first. Wouldn’t it be a booking issue more than anything else? Same thing can happen with cement work in big cities.
I’m more curious about what would happen to trellising and canopy management. Do you know if the machines can work for multiple types or would all vineyards have to be treated the same?
Greg, I was wondering what the implications were for bush vines, especially old sites and some grape varieties that tend to benefit from non-trellised growth patterns.
From what I understand, most of the machines are optimized to work with specific trellising systems. They therefore cannot be employed quickly in a Vineyard that has a difference trellising system. Either they what stand the chance of causing damage to the trellis itself or would not be efficient at harvesting at all.
It’s not just harvesting. I would be somewhat disinclined to buy machine harvested fruit given our fairly heavy use of whole clusters but nearly every aspect of farming has a potential for a machine version now. Some of its pretty amazing. Machine hedging has been around for ever but fairly new, at least up here, is machine wire raising and clip installing. That’s pretty wicked. You obviously need a certain type of trellising and the longer your rows are the more beneficial and cost-effective it is. You just have to be ready for a machine to be doing a job that humans used to do. We are still largely human farmer and our vineyard would be somewhat different to convert to large scale machine work but that’s the future for sure.