Yes, here we are talking about the grape harvest in February. That's because the Southern Hemisphere is about to start picking and processing the fruit. There are still Covid restrictions in place, especially for internation travel. Many countries rely on young, foreign workers who want to spend a few months working long hours, piling up some cash, and seeing how wine is made elsewhere.
New Zealand is an island nation, making it easy to control entry and keep Covid cases very low. An outbreak to them was a half-dozen reported cases at a time. It's also a country that relies heavily on seasonal foreign workers. One thing that helps New Zealand with the grape harvest is almost all the picking is mechanized. The cellar work, however, is hands-on.
My son and his wife live in Marlborough and work in the wine industry. Their wineries are approaching the problem of no harvest help uniquely, but differently.
She is in a small, family winery. For the summer they hired tasting room help as the country opened back up. Luckily, all the hires, including my daughter-in-law, have previous wine cellar experience. The winery will close the tasting room when the fruit starts coming in and use these folks to help process the grapes.
My son is a cellar supervisor for a very large operation. They need many workers to help in their huge cellar. They managed to get their office workers to volunteer to help with the harvest. I wonder if they know what they've gotten into. The work is physically difficult, sometimes tedious, and the hours are long (the winery will run two 12-hour shifts for as many days of the week as necessary). The office staff will be trading in their computers for rakes, shovels, and hoses. They might end their shift too dirty to slide in the Audi for the drive home. This is going to be fun to watch. Well, not for my son maybe, but for me from a distance.
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| "I got an accounting degree so I could do this?" :) |
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