5 Reasons Harvest is the Most Wonderful Time of Year
1. The Grapes:
I have unlimited access to delicious grapes. Fresh-picked wine grapes are juicier and more flavorful than anything you get in the grocery store. Even freshly-picked, each clone of Pinot Noir tastes unique. Each type highlights a different flavor profile, and when blended, the result is an aromatic and complex wine (hint: keep an eye out for our Pinot Noir reserve). These fresh grapes are so delicious I don’t even mind the seeds! 
Freshly-harvested Pinot Noir grapes
Fun Fact: Assistant winemaker Stephen Johnsen reminds us how Pinot Noir got its name: the French word Pinot for pine cone, because the tight little bunches look like pine cones, and Noir for the dark skins.
Fun Fact: Our winemakers examine the seeds to help determine ripeness.
Our grapes are transported in these yellow containers called “lugs.” Each container holds about 20 pounds of grapes.
2. The Smells:
The cellar smells like bananas, and the lab smells like bread. We’ve got tons of grapes fermenting in our cellar right now, throwing off mouth-watering aromas, including something like bananas. Call me crazy! But bread? Really, bread? Cameron, our wine maker, chooses specific yeast strains for the fermentation of the white grape juices and red grape musts. Similar to bread yeast you would find in the grocery store, our yeasts arrives dry. With rehydrating yeast filling every container imaginable the lab begins to smell like a warm homey bread shop.
Fermenting Pinot Noir
3. The Sunsets:
Daytime hours are waning, yet there is more and more to do! Every once in a while, we stop and take in a deep breath - appreciating the beautiful sunsets we are blessed with in the valley of the Sourlands.
4. The Customers:
You – the customers – come out and see us more! As the weather cools everyone is out and about. This is prime festival, farm market, wine trail, and wedding season. Speaking of which, have you gotten your tickets yet for our Annual Fall Festival? You can try your hand…er, foot…at grape-stomping!
5. The Interns:
Unionville Vineyards has a couple of wonderful harvest helpers, including Kathryn, a current Rutgers University, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) student, Emily, a SEBS alumnus, and Pam, a sommelier. We couldn't do it without them.
Our assistant winemaker Stephen “Zeke” Johnsen showing intern Kathryn how to properly clean tanks.
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The Best Wines are the Ones You Fight For
We picked from 5am that day until a little past midnight, almost 19 hours of harvesting. The pick was only interrupted for bathroom breaks, pizza, and eventually some beers to keep morale high. I think the high morale beer was Miller High Life, although the details are fuzzy and it would only have been selected ironically. It was the most tenacious day I can recall in the field here. We picked nearly 10 tons from three different vineyards, finishing with the Pheasant Hill Chardonnay. We saran wrapped the bins during transport and weighing back at the winery as Ophelia's first raindrops splashed down just after midnight.
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Mike Rutkowski
September 21, 2014
Love this article about Harvest. Great info for giving tours. Pine cones . . . really???