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Gazette, The (Cedar RapidsIowa City, IA)
Grape picker The Gazette Published: September 10, 2007SWISHER It's 7:15 on a sunny Sunday morning, and Elliot Wilson had hoped to sleep in for a couple more hours.No such luck. The deep purplish red St. Croix grapes are ready for harvesting at Cedar Ridge Vineyards, Winery &Distillery in Swisher, and Wilson needs to get picking. His uncle and aunt, Jeff and Laurie Quint, own the business,and Wilson, 22, is his uncle's righthand man.
It's a gorgeous, relatively cool, late August morning. The vineyard is quiet, except for the subtle hum of buzzinginsects and cars whizzing by on Interstate 380, about a mile to the east. Birds occasionally swoop low, perhaps tosnack on bugs or plump grapes.
Volunteers many of them family and friends and paid local workers are readying the vineyard for the day'sharvest. Exceptionally long, black nylon nets designed to keep birds and other wildlife from the ripe grapes aredragged off the vines. Flat, white plastic crates are tossed at somewhat even intervals between the rows of vines.
Jeff Quint parks his pickup toward the bottom of the steep hill at the base of the vineyard, opens the tailgate andhands out pruners and gloves to the linedup pickers.
Wilson scoffs at the gloves, even though everything is wet with dew.
Really wet. It took Wilson one day of picking several years ago to realize that he needed to wear boots rather thansneakers.
The vineyard smells fresh, earthy and a little vinegary.
"That's not good. That means you have a lot of rotten grapes," Wilson said.
Leaning his face close to the leaves, Wilson reaches into the center of a vine, pushes aside a few leaves, grabs abunch of grapes. He snips the stem close to the fruit.
The rhythm of grape picking is an endless variety of one theme rustle leaves, snip, drop, snip, drop, snip, drop until the vine is picked clean. Then slide the crate to the next plant, occasionally moving lightweight net out of theway.
Of the 10 grape varieties grown at the vineyard, St. Croix is among the easiest to pick, as the plant prefers to betrained to grow top down.
"They're at arm's height so you don't have to bend down. There's not a lot of coverage and foliage to fight with to getthrough to the grapes. There's just a few big leaves, unlike other varieties where there's a lot of little leaves," Wilsondemonstrates.
It's not hard work, just wet, tedious, repetitive, he says. For a while, Wilson works alone. Most harvesting days hewears an iPod and "gets into the zone."
A firsttime picker hands Wilson a bunch of grapes and asks if it's still good to use. Wilson takes the cluster andwiggles the grapes a bit.
"Yeah, that one's still good," he says, handing the bunch back over the top of the vine. When his crate fills with fruit,Wilson leaves it there and uses
IOWA LIFE, PAGE 6B
Iowa Life/Bees pester pickers
FROM PAGE 1B
another. "The grapes on the bottom will start to get mushy because of the weight," he says.
Staffing is a little low, and Wilson suspects he'll be the one walking the rows later to pick up full crates. He jokes thathe'd like to see 100 people picking grapes to get it done faster. So far this year, 25 is the largest group to assemble.
It's starting to get warm and the bees are getting thicker. Wilson notices a bee on his forearm and watches it for afew seconds. He gets stung at least once every day in the vineyard. A workplace hazard.
But there is a benefit: breakfast. Wilson samples a grape, squeezing the fruit into his mouth, then spitting the skin tothe ground.
"A little sweet, a little tart. The sweeter the better," he says.
Wilson is halfway through their 500foot row when Quint hollers a reminder: A few rows up pickers will run into rowsof white St. Pepin grapes. Leave them. They'll get picked later, he says.
Because the rows get shorter as they move higher into the vineyard, by the time everyone reaches the end of theirfirst row, picking will be twothirds done, Quint says.
Wilson shakes his head as Quint walks away. "He's an optimist."
He throws a rotten bunch to the ground to get it off the vine "so that the plant doesn't waste its energy on givingnutrients to a rotten plant."
The sun is much higher in the sky now, and the bees are getting thicker by the minute, sometimes bellying up topuddles of grape juice. The ground is stained a pinkish purple in spots where baskets rested.
After three hours, Wilson reaches the end of his first row. Five baskets are filled with an estimated 100 pounds ofgrapes. It takes 12 to 15 pounds of grapes to equal a gallon of juice to produce about four bottles of wine.
Wilson prefers work in the indoor winery and distillery. When grape pickers are done for the day, he will head to thewinery in Cedar Rapids to destem and crush the grapes.
"Grapes and booze: the story of my life," Wilson said.
Contact the writer: (319) 3988318 or [email protected]
Elliot Wilson
Age: 22
Address: Cedar Rapids
Occupation: Winemaker/distiller, Cedar Ridge Vineyards, Winery & Distillery Education: 2004 Kennedy High Schoolgrad; senior, marketing major, Mount Mercy College Family: parents live in Cedar Rapids; three siblings Want to tryit?
Anyone who would like to help pick grapes can call Cedar Ridge Vineyards, Winery & Distillery, 501 Seventh Ave.SE, Suite B, Cedar Rapids, at (319) 3622778; or email the business at [email protected]; or visit the Web site:www.crwine.com
COLOR PHOTOS
Chris Kelleher photos/The Gazette
Copyright (c) 2007, Gazette Communications, Inc.
