Manual harvesting

I've seen a couple of crews in the vineyards out back working to harvest grapes by hand over the past few days. It feels like they're doing more manual harvesting than in years past, but I can't be certain. Each coupeur (picker, or literally, cutter) in the crew uses a sécateur (pruning shears) to cut the bunches of grapes from the vine. He or she also has a bucket to hold the bunches temporarily.

A picker empties his bucket into the larger "hotte." You can see the pruning shears in his right hand.

Another member (or members) of the crew, le porteur (the carrier), carries a large basket called une hotte on his shoulders and walks up and down the rows where the pickers are working. The pickers empty their buckets into the hotte. When that's full, the carrier empties it into a waiting trailer for transport to the winery.

The "porteur" empties his basket into the trailer by climbing up a ladder and leaning in until the grapes slide out.

I got a couple of shots of the process on Wednesday. These are smaller portions of larger photos taken from a distance. I'm not really comfortable asking strangers if I can take their picture, so I just snapped a few when they weren't looking as I walked by.