Someone has to pick the fruit. And get it to the winery or the packing shed, destination supermarket, or to the drying trays in the fields, for the dried raisins.
An Army of Pickers
The harvest means employment for an army of pickers who work the vines by hand. Mechanization? Not yet on a large scale for some years. One reason may be the sheer cost of a mechanical harvester; few small vintners will be able to afford the $70,000 per machine. In addition, the machines cannot handle the steep grades of some vineyards.
The industry must therefore rely on people for the next decade. Only a minority of the pickers belong to unions. At harvest time, vine owners call on friends, relatives, family members, and neighbors to help cut those round beauties. In some areas, you'll see Mexican migrants who return home soon after the harvest. You'll talk to Hispano workers who live in the wine country. And you will be told about California vineyards where union members get as much as $6 an hour for gathering grapes. At other places, such as Louis Martini's vineyard in Napa County, for instance, pickers have earned up to $100 a day.
Keep in mind that the deployed army works for only about two weeks; the California harvest begins at some areas as early as August 20, and may end as late as November 1. (The state of California Farm Labor Offices are worth contacting for exact dates and job leads.) The minimum age at most U.S. vineyards is eighteen. Certain employers provide accommodations and food. Other grape farmers let you make your own arrangements. And while you'll probably be able to get hired in California, your chances in France and Germany happen to be even better. (See special section at the end of this chapter.) The French welcome any healthy paid volunteer-male or female, over eighteen or under fifty, for the vendange, or grape harvest.
The California Wine Country
Some of California's famous grapes already ripen in early August, or early September. The best time to explore for a job is before the actual harvest. Take a bus ride (or a thumb ride) or drive into the wine country in your own car. The official, touristy "wine tour" can get you acquainted with the vintner powers-that-be. Talk to the cellarmasters. Speak with the professional technicians who test grapes for maturity and sugar contents. (And in any case, sample some of the wines.) Almost all California wineries set up elaborate (free) tastings and lectures on the growing-harvesting-winemaking basics, which allow you to develop some leads. Bear in mind that not every winery grows its own grapes; some well-known vintners buy the fruit from various vineyards. But at least you get a foot in the door and gain some insight on the season's possibilities. For the best research, go only on weekdays. Too many tourists gang up on the vintners on weekends.
Some geographical and travel-oriented details: California's wine country, especially up north, makes for a handsome sight. Many of the mountainous areas look the way they did centuries ago when the padres planted the first vines. Somehow, the tradition-bound grape farmers, among them several family generations of Italians, kept out the greedy land and housing developers and their bulldozers. In the faint light, even when the fog and smog rolls across these hills, the landscape affords a pleasing symmetry.
Begin in San Francisco; you'll find vineyards and wineries in every direction. One-day swings get you to some properties that date back to the Spaniards and their missions.
The fertile Santa Clara Valley is easily accessible via U.S. Highway 101, leading south along the west shore of San Francisco Bay; #101 also runs through San Jose and Santa Clara to the Santa Clara Valley. Or travel across the Golden Gate Bridge and through Marin County to the wine-growing areas of Sonoma County. (Highway 121 takes you to the picturesque town of Sonoma.) Another possibility? Head into the rocky Livermore Valley via Interstate 580. Or cross the Maya-camas Range via Highway 29 to the Napa Valley. Vines and wineries dot the area all the way to Calistoga. The hill-strewn acres of vineyards, which include neighboring Solano County, are very scenic.
A trip to Sacramento leads to more wine touring. And a drive south on State Highway 99 through the San Joaquin Valley will take you to Lodi, whose winemakers are known for their brandies as well.
More vineyards cluster around Los Angeles and San Diego in the Cucamonga District. Some of them specialize in table grapes or dried fruit. California's north and central coasts produce many of the grapes which are crushed for winemaking. The United States is now the sixth largest wine producer in the world, and when you start clipping those grape bunches, you'll be a link to the elegant-sounding varieties like California Chardonnay, Chablis, Chenin Blanc, or Riesling (all of them white wines). Or you help produce the local Burgundies, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir. Listen to the tales about vintages. Find out about the ancient traditions of the vintners.
Even the philosophers took wine seriously. "Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man," wrote Plato. Or listen to Ovid, the Roman poet: "Wine warms the blood, adds luster to the eyes. And wine and love have ever been allies."
Grape Picking: An Honest Word
To the aesthete, a ripe cluster of grapes is a beautiful sight; the golden or blue circles shine in the sun and stand out against the sky. But if you're a picker, a little of the romance goes a long way. In some of California's areas-especially the Central Valley-the heat is fierce; that's why most harvesters start working in the first daylight. They prefer the cool dawn to the scorching afternoon. Whether you pick table grapes or collect fruit for crushing, you'll have to separate the grape clusters from the vine stems. Some U.S. varieties like the Chenin Blanc vines are tough; it is harder work to cut off these grape clumps.
Californians generally prefer small curved knives for the task. (In Europe, you'll be snipping with special shears, a smaller version of those we use for pruning in North America.) Either way, you may cut yourself on occasion. You'll draw blood. You may be a candidate for Band-Aids. Since you work faster without gloves, you can get stung by insects. (One picker even got bitten by a vineyard mouse.) After a day or two, you must expect many inevitable nicks and cuts. Wrote one youth, "My girl friend's hands have grown rougher. Aside from the expected scrapes and minor blisters, one of her fingers is red and partially swollen."
And of course, you stoop a great deal, so you need to be in fair physical shape. You also require a strong back. Young people accustomed to carrying a heavy backpack for long periods-or who sleep on the hard ground-can usually get used to the rigors of grape picking a little faster.
You can't arrive with weak abdominal muscles, either: U.S. wine grape picking means filling up pans, lugging boxes, baskets, or crates that must be emptied into gondolas holding anywhere from two to five tons of fruit. At some vineyards, a man (or woman) is expected to cut as many as 1,000 to 1,500 pounds per day, sans leaves, of course. The work with the raisin trays is a little easier, perhaps. Your supermarket grapes usually go into 50-pound boxes or crates waiting in the fields, which means plenty of hauling for some people.
All in all, however, the experience is positive. One twenty-one-year-old picker summed it up best of all: "I felt my body responding well to exertion and the good diet. Grape picking means a fine workout for your entire system."
Some Useful Data
Your wages vary from one vineyard to the other. Some harvesters get paid by the hour, with occasional bonuses. (The hourly pay doesn't always conform with the minimum set by the U.S. Department of Labor.) Piecework is frequent, too. To be sure, unionized pickers (a minority) make the most money, which is a pittance compared to the incomes of millionaire wine farmers like August Sebastiani and others. (Some vineyards are now also in the hands of corporate giants.) The grape-picker unions have some clout; unionized pickers make better hourly wages. To illustrate: Gallo's (unionized) grape pickers earn twice as much as the migrants. One of the unions also pressed the big corporate owners to pay time and a half for any shift over ten hours, plus medical and retirement benefits. Naturally, the covered workers often do more than just seasonal California grape picking; they also help out at other periods with pruning, fertilizing, and so on. Large wine operations like Gallo, though their wines are ordinary by French standards, aim for some professionalism and experience even in their young seasonal helpers. A personal visit to the listed vineyards and wineries should yield the local info and clue you in on where the jobs are. Make your calls early! This may be an "outstanding year"!
Other Areas in the United States
Outside of California, the most important wine-growing districts are the Finger Lakes district of New York State, noted for its champagne and the production of table and dessert wines, and the Sandusky-Lake Erie Islands region of northern Ohio, also a champagne and table wine-producing area. Other districts are the Yakima Valley in Washington; the Willamette Valley of Oregon; the whole of southwestern Michigan; the Hudson River Valley of New York; the area around Charlottesville in Virginia; the eastern coastal plains of North Carolina, areas in the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, and minor areas in other states.
Choose an area near you. The local State Labor, Farm Bureau, Job Service Office should know about some openings for seasonal workers. A few major wine producers are worth a visit, too:
"It is nearly 7 a.m. when we join the other grape pickers on the edge of Tavel, the village north of Avignon. The early morning here is a classic. The tiled village roofs stand out in soft apricot hues against a rose sky. The hillsides roll toward the horizon. The vineyard owner's wife rolls up in an old truck. We're greeted with Latin warmth, so typical for the South of France. We meet our coworkers. There is the grower's aging mother, a couple of cousins, a nephew, a niece, and three middle-aged village women. Plus two Spaniards and an Egyptian who speaks little French beyond 'Merci' or 'Bonjour.' And two of us North Americans, a girl from Canada and myself, a Coloradan."
So begins the vendange diary of Stephen C, age twenty-one, a Denverite who lived this and other adventures. We quote (with permission) from Stephen's diary:
Monsieur Planterin, the burly, friendly owner, is already driving his tractor to our morning's work site. Planterin and his immediate family know these hillsides; they spend much time here during the year, planting, replanting, pruning, plowing. But now comes the most intensive work period for these people. And they need us.
Our truck bounds along dirt tracks through Tavel's maze of vineyards. We halt in the honeyed sunlight. The vines' autumnal leaf colors remind of a French Impressionist painting. We bend and squat to remove the black succulent grapes. There are about ten of us pickers in the field. We each work one row, though often helping one other because the grape clusters are not evenly distributed. Our hands get black and sticky from the juice and grit. There are nine coupeurs (cutters) and one porteur (porter) who ferries the full plastic buckets (3 gallons) to the wagon pulled by a narrow-built tractor. Using a pair of clippers, one must rape each plant of its season's virginity. We normally cut two or three clumps before tossing them into the bucket.
At 9:00 a.m. we pause for a few minutes and share the owner's breakfast. Excellent smoked ham, bread and, naturally, rose Tavel wine. (The breakfast is not a common practice but a sign of the boss's generosity.) As the sun climbs the morning sky we set to work again. The sing-song of the French women keeps us in good humor. I don't understand every line. Fluent French is by no means necessary here. But a little knowledge makes your experience more meaningful and proves useful on occasion.
We finish one long swath of vines and move to the next. The proprietor lets me maneuver the little Renault tractor. The field work goes on. At eleven a.m. the truck takes us back to the wine grower's estate. Monsieur Planterin furnishes potatoes, onions, tomatoes and all the wine we want. No charge. Other foodstuffs we must buy ourselves. I eat extremely well. Massive portions of sardines, lentils, eggs, bread, wine, tea, and salads.
The break lasts till 1:00 p.m., allowing a nap of half an hour or so. This time the truck heads in the opposite direction, past the old fountain and the rustic church. The vineyards are scattered piecemeal all around the village. Imagine! They've been growing grapes here for over two thousand years. The Tavel Rose is justly famous; so is the Chateauneuf-du-Pape, also grown nearby.
The afternoons are warm. Each sweet purple grape seems to glow as if to prove that fermentation is superfluous, redundant. My Canadian friend's cheeks look tawny with the sun. The harvest goes on. Clip, clip, clip, plop; clip, snip, plop. It is my turn to sing "All day pickin' cotton, but my backache's soon forgotten, when I get back to you. . . ." It is astonishing how you soothe muscle aches by singing. You can also mollify back pains by watching the sixty- and seventy-year-old Planterins as they stoop all day over the vines. The gathering of grapes continues until 5:00 p.m. in two four-hour shifts. More than eight hours of picking per day is considered too much. Some migrant workers ask to work longer hours and they make more money that way.
After a light supper we stroll into the village. We are delighted by the ancient dwellings and the narrow cobbled streets. The scent of the new wine is everywhere. It drips from wagons and overflows from casks. Wine odors even waft from the arcaded courtyards with grape arbors. We pass the bakery. Two little girls with pigtails emerge with long, golden loaves. Wine growers and pickers coalesce in warm taverns. Before turning back, we join them for an Anisette, or two. "Bon Soir" echoes appealingly through the back streets and we glow to be in France-a grape-pickers' France-before dropping off into a deep well-earned sleep.
