The Vancouver Wine Festival was held last week, and Australia was the theme country (the Oz wine industry still does a great job of marketing in its export markets).
Majella was one of the Oz wineries participating, and Brian Lynn was pouring some of his wines. Loved the sparkling shiraz, really enjoyed the young but promising 2004 cabernet, and ditto the 2004 Mallea (sp?).
Anyway, somehow we got onto the topic of mechanization in Coonawarra. Brian firmly stated that Majella uses machines for both pruning and harvesting all his wines, and he had no problems with that. That suprised me a little, and I suggested that it might have an impact on the vines and thus wine quality. He would have none of it, and said there was no difference between hand picked and machine picked fruit. He also suggested there were no workers to pick in Connawarra even if he wanted to.
I'm of two minds here. On the 'con' side, Brian would obviously support the method he uses: I'm not sure he (or anyone else in his position) could be unbiased on this topic. Also, I've heard a few times that Wynns has moved to hand pruning and (I think) picking, so they obvioulsy feel there are significant benefits.
On the other hand, I think most would agree that Majella is one of the top producers in Coonawarra - the proof may well be in the pudding, so to speak. It's hard to argue with the wines they produce on a long-term basis.
What do you think? Should producers striving for top quality - as Majella sees to - move to hand pruning and picking if at all possible? Does hand pruning and picking - all other variables being equal - produce better wines in the short and/or long term?
Machine Pruning and Picking - Good or Bad?
Machine or hand picking and pruning
There are a lot more options than just everything by machine or everything by hand. For example, you can hand prune and then machine pick. This has been discussed here before, but if the choice is between a slow handpick that risks serious heatloads in fruit and possible oxidation, or getting the lot off quickly in the morning or at night by machine, then machine picking can give better fruit quality.
Really old and brittle vines are not worth the risk with machine picks and some approaches to machine pruning. If you net the vineyard, it can be cheaper and easier to handpick under the nets than trying to staff net removal just before the machine goes through.
Very delicate aromatic white grapes such as riesling benefit from handpicking, if done quickly, well and cool. Sparkling base wines I'd say the same for.
My personal experience is that doing everything by hand gets better quality if you can get the people to get the tasks done well and at the right time, and can afford the (usually) higher costs. This is also really a site-specific issue, with sites like ours at Quarry Hill just too steep and rocky for serious mechanisation.
Really old and brittle vines are not worth the risk with machine picks and some approaches to machine pruning. If you net the vineyard, it can be cheaper and easier to handpick under the nets than trying to staff net removal just before the machine goes through.
Very delicate aromatic white grapes such as riesling benefit from handpicking, if done quickly, well and cool. Sparkling base wines I'd say the same for.
My personal experience is that doing everything by hand gets better quality if you can get the people to get the tasks done well and at the right time, and can afford the (usually) higher costs. This is also really a site-specific issue, with sites like ours at Quarry Hill just too steep and rocky for serious mechanisation.
Paul.
Thanks for the replies.
I find it hard to believe that using machines would ultimately produce better fruit/vines/wine than hand pruning and harvesting. And I find it surprising that most Coonawarra growers use this method. Do any other regions in Australia mainly rely on machines? Or is this just a Coonawarra thing?
I didn't think of it as a cost-cutting method or a reflection of the retail prices of the wines, but I suppose there is some truth in that.
But perhaps it becomes a bit of a 'chicken and egg' question? That is, do the prices of Coonawarra wines reflect the quality of the vines as directed by the use of machines? Put another way, will the prices never go up too much if they continue to use machines, as the quality of the fruit will always suffer to some extent? Or, if they did move to hand pruning and picking, could they then increase wine quality enough to raise prices to pay for workers?
I wonder if Wynn's will conduct any internal studies on this issue...
I find it hard to believe that using machines would ultimately produce better fruit/vines/wine than hand pruning and harvesting. And I find it surprising that most Coonawarra growers use this method. Do any other regions in Australia mainly rely on machines? Or is this just a Coonawarra thing?
I didn't think of it as a cost-cutting method or a reflection of the retail prices of the wines, but I suppose there is some truth in that.
But perhaps it becomes a bit of a 'chicken and egg' question? That is, do the prices of Coonawarra wines reflect the quality of the vines as directed by the use of machines? Put another way, will the prices never go up too much if they continue to use machines, as the quality of the fruit will always suffer to some extent? Or, if they did move to hand pruning and picking, could they then increase wine quality enough to raise prices to pay for workers?
I wonder if Wynn's will conduct any internal studies on this issue...
Here in the Riverland most blocks are machine pruned and machine harvested.
I used to work on a vineyard years ago (10) to be axact, and all pruning and harvesting was done by machine back then. We used to walk through and hand prune the straggly bits off after.
The vines are still producing well to this day. Some years it is necessary to give certain vines a real short back and sides with the machine and they dont produce as well that year but do come back again.
I used to work on a vineyard years ago (10) to be axact, and all pruning and harvesting was done by machine back then. We used to walk through and hand prune the straggly bits off after.
The vines are still producing well to this day. Some years it is necessary to give certain vines a real short back and sides with the machine and they dont produce as well that year but do come back again.
"A woman drove me to drink, and I'll be a son of a gun but I never even wrote to thank her" WC Fields
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Grey Ghost
- Posts: 46
- Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:28 pm
- Location: NZ
Machine harvesting.
Two simple figures
1. Hand harvesting $350 to $400 a tonne. Varietal dependent of course - I could pick 1 1/2 tonnes of Doradillo a day - but only half a tonne of Pinot noir.
2. Machine harvesting (contract machine) approximately $70 a tonne.
In my experience, if the fruit is less than one hour from the crusher then there is little difference in the resulting white wine. There is maceration of the fruit and some skin contact (not necessarily a bad thing), but the phenolics can be dealt with by fining. I've seen hand picked Chardonnay come in to a Rutherglen winery (Baileys, 1979), that crushed brown. The next day, after cold settling on casein or bentonite (I forget which), it was crystal clear and green. Treating the phenolics of machine harvesting would be as simple.
To put the other case, hand-harvesting retains full berry structure until it is macerated through the crusher -less phenolics and less time on skins. Probably meaning less fining. Secondly, if hand harvested AND whole-bunch pressed, there is virtually no phenolic extraction and you get limpidly clear, bright green juice, even from Riesling.
Red may be another matter though. The petioles (leaf-stalks) remain green here in NZ and contribute to a like flavour characteristic as it is almost impossible to remove them through the crusher. In this case hand harvesting is a positive. Fruit for the entry-level Pinot noir is machined (cost considerations), with the winery having to fine to remove any green characters.
Australia harvests 1.9 million tonnes of wine grapes - 1.9 million man-days of harvesting in a period of say eight weeks = 56 days = 34,000 pickers.
I think machine harvesting is here to stay.
Machine pruning.
Machine pruning can stuff up vines unless it is carefully thought though and compensated for the dense canopy of short, but dead wood. Rednut explains the method used in his region.
The dilemma faced in remote regions like Coonawarra is that with say 5000 hectares of grapes, you would need 50,000 man-days to prune them (cane pruning for a "cool climate" of course). Something in the order of 1000 pruners and tying people. Machine pruning also exacerbates the biennial crop variation that is natural to the vine (and all temperate, fruiting plants), which is clearly apparent in the yields from the MIA.
Finally, mahcine pruning costs in the order of 15 cents a vine - hand pruning around $1.50 a vine. However, the punters want wines for less than $10.00 a bottle retail and this as much as the labour shortage, dictates machine pruning.
As ye sew, so shall ye reap.
Two simple figures
1. Hand harvesting $350 to $400 a tonne. Varietal dependent of course - I could pick 1 1/2 tonnes of Doradillo a day - but only half a tonne of Pinot noir.
2. Machine harvesting (contract machine) approximately $70 a tonne.
In my experience, if the fruit is less than one hour from the crusher then there is little difference in the resulting white wine. There is maceration of the fruit and some skin contact (not necessarily a bad thing), but the phenolics can be dealt with by fining. I've seen hand picked Chardonnay come in to a Rutherglen winery (Baileys, 1979), that crushed brown. The next day, after cold settling on casein or bentonite (I forget which), it was crystal clear and green. Treating the phenolics of machine harvesting would be as simple.
To put the other case, hand-harvesting retains full berry structure until it is macerated through the crusher -less phenolics and less time on skins. Probably meaning less fining. Secondly, if hand harvested AND whole-bunch pressed, there is virtually no phenolic extraction and you get limpidly clear, bright green juice, even from Riesling.
Red may be another matter though. The petioles (leaf-stalks) remain green here in NZ and contribute to a like flavour characteristic as it is almost impossible to remove them through the crusher. In this case hand harvesting is a positive. Fruit for the entry-level Pinot noir is machined (cost considerations), with the winery having to fine to remove any green characters.
Australia harvests 1.9 million tonnes of wine grapes - 1.9 million man-days of harvesting in a period of say eight weeks = 56 days = 34,000 pickers.
I think machine harvesting is here to stay.
Machine pruning.
Machine pruning can stuff up vines unless it is carefully thought though and compensated for the dense canopy of short, but dead wood. Rednut explains the method used in his region.
The dilemma faced in remote regions like Coonawarra is that with say 5000 hectares of grapes, you would need 50,000 man-days to prune them (cane pruning for a "cool climate" of course). Something in the order of 1000 pruners and tying people. Machine pruning also exacerbates the biennial crop variation that is natural to the vine (and all temperate, fruiting plants), which is clearly apparent in the yields from the MIA.
Finally, mahcine pruning costs in the order of 15 cents a vine - hand pruning around $1.50 a vine. However, the punters want wines for less than $10.00 a bottle retail and this as much as the labour shortage, dictates machine pruning.
As ye sew, so shall ye reap.