Grape harvesting machine

The wine tourists prefer to see a harvest by hand, but it is becoming increasingly rare. At default, the following videos expose details of the harvesting by grape harvesting machine .

Overview

The young vines are trellised often well to be harvested mechanically, if the machine is properly adjusted quality approaches a manual harvest.

Shaking the vines

The speed of advance of the machine and the rhythm of beating the vines muchdetermine the quality of grapes harvested. If the machine is going too fast you need to increase the speed of beating to bring down the grape, so you break the vines andberries are broke (therefore oxidation).

Go slowly

For old vines (poorly trellised, and with old wood) or with a speed too fast so we harvestthe shoots and leaves, as on this video :

Tractor and trailer

After the grape harvest, work is not quite finished. It should also bring these grapes to the cellar quickly to avoid excessive oxidation. A machine is always accompanied by a tractor with a trailer. Small trailers allow you to make frequent trips back and in addition they do not crush the grapes much, it is often used in those areas AOC. On the video the trailer can hold 3-5 tons, it really is not ideal, but sometimes when the vine is far from the cave you can not make dozens of trips back...