You Can Tell It's Harvest Season in Sonoma County

image from pressdemocrat.com

The wine grape harvest changes many things with the Sonoma County landscape. Peg Melnik from
the local paper tells you all about it in great detail:

Press Democrat article


But if you only want the short summary:

• It smells like fermentation.
• You get stuck behind slow-moving grape trucks, especially early in the morning.
• You see lots of activities at wine production facilities around the crush pad. These facilities are lit up at night because there's not much time off right now.
• You see lots of people in their 20s in t-shirts, shorts and heavy work boots. They all speak different languages. They're here for the grape harvest. They drive dirty, old cars. They're living cheaply. If you see some of them in a pub buy 'em a beer!
• You see cases of Lagunitas and other local brews fly off the store shelves for the care and feeding of the work crews and wine makers.
• There will be lights in the vineyards at 4 am as grapes are being harvested; maybe 2 am.
• You'll see lots of sleepy looking, perhaps dirty and unshaven, people. Some will be shaking a fist and swearing at the sky when the weather isn't perfect.