Harvest Is Coming. Are You Prepared?

Here is my harvest checklist so you can rest easy

Every year we all find ourselves in the same boat. We ramp up, try to mentally prepare for what is about to come, remember what we’ve done in years past and sometimes realize a bit too late that we may have forgotten something. Here are nine obvious and not so obvious things to bear in mind in these last weeks before the grapes start rolling in.

1. Service and check all your equipment.

I can’t stress this one enough. All of your crush equipment has been sitting idle for over 9 months. Maintenance pre-harvest is the best way to prevent peak season meltdowns. Call the companies for each piece of equipment or service in-house if you are able. Plug everything in. Check hoses and bins for leaks. Do a pre-harvest sanitation on every piece of processing equipment. Trust me.

2. Make a list of important phone numbers.

Do you know who you will call if a piece of equipment breaks down during harvest? Make a list of the crucial phone numbers you may need if something goes wrong during harvest. Hang up a laminated copy in an obvious place in the cellar and/or lab. It is easy to remember who to call and their numbers when things are slow but in an emergency, it’s better to have one place for you and your cellar team to reference.

3. Sanitize your tanks and bins.

Yeah, you still aren’t going to use them for a few weeks and what is the point of doing it twice? Well, these things have been sitting for a LONG time. They are dusty, even when kept in the cleanest wineries. Give them a pre-clean so when harvest comes, you can sanitize and not waste crucial time scrubbing off 9 months of grime.

4. Clean, clean, clean.

Clean your cellar. Put everything in a “home.” Label everything so interns will be able to put things back correctly. Check your inventory of supplies like fermentation bungs, gaskets, hoses to run multiple pumps at once. Label your glycol lines. Make it easy on your employees and cellar staff to function when things ramp up.

5. Have a safety meeting for current employees and harvest interns.

Things move quickly during harvest. Set the tone and your safety standards from the beginning. Make safety a non-negotiable. Remind your longer term employees of your standards. It may seem trivial, but once things are busy, it is easy for us to forget that interns may have never been taught the correct and safe way to do things.

6. How’s your data organization looking?

We’ve all done it. It can be a particularly bad and condensed harvest and things get pushed to the side. Make yourself a fool-proof, easy to use system ahead of time. Pre-set your work order templates in your database system or make easy-to-use spreadsheets for data entry. Be prepared. Start on a detailed note and it will be easier to maintain even in the busiest of times.

7. Make yourself a harvest diary (of sorts).

Make a system to jot down heat spikes, crazy weather patterns, problems in the fruit, huge crops, and everything in between. These things we tell ourselves we will remember later are somehow easily forgotten every year.

8. Call your growers.

Check in. Go over harvesting details, bin delivery requests, sorting protocols. Yes, you probably have a contract with this in it that you made months ago. Refresh for yourself and your grower so no one is surprised when tempers may already be high.

9. Take care of yourself.

This is my personal note to you. You are going to get hungry, thirsty and tired constantly for the next 3 months. Prepare for this. Buy snacks in bulk. Have a plan for meals ahead of time. There will still probably be a point towards the end where you live on takeout burritos but try to push that off for at least a little while.

Good luck!