It's already October, and it's time for everyone to get busy with Merlot's harvest.

The grapes are harvested by the winery's own employees or by temporary workers, but by outsourcing the entire harvest process to the harvesting companies, which dispatch their own teams to take care of the harvest, preliminary selection and transportation.

These harvesting companies are basically formed by Napa locals, the machinery operators are basically employed by Napa locals, and the front-line harvesters at the bottom are not only the housewives in the vicinity, but also a large number of Lao Mo. As for whether they have documents or not, it has nothing to do with the winery, Xiao Yifei can't ask in detail.

The foremen who manage these old inks are generally English-speaking, documented or American. Some naturalized Mexican foremen have been working for a few years, making some money and making some connections, so they can set up their own small harvesting companies or vineyard management companies, so the competition is fierce.

Outsourcing the grape harvest is certainly more expensive than hiring temporary workers for the winery itself.

It is true that some wineries or vineyards hire temporary workers to be responsible for harvesting, but most of the wineries that use this method are small wineries, generally only a dozen or dozens of acres, and they generally find someone to harvest by themselves, because the harvesting company must make a difference, and hiring someone by themselves is equivalent to skipping the intermediate link, which can be cheaper.

But Monterena has more than 200 acres of vineyards, and to hire its own would require hiring a large contingent of temporary harvesters. Davy, who relied on the vineyard, with his four employees, couldn't manage it at all. Therefore, each year before the harvest period, the winery and the harvesting company conclude a contract with the harvesting company, which roughly stipulates the number of workers required. Throughout the two-month harvest period, these workers are usually dedicated to the winery.

However, management problems are not the main reason for the outsourcing of harvesting, the main reason is to avoid legal issues.

Everyone knows that many or even most of these temporary workers must be black workers, and if the immigration bureau catches the winery to hire black workers, the winery will be fined. But now that the harvest is outsourced to a management company, even if the immigration bureau catches the illegal workers, the winery simply says, "We don't know, they are not hired by us." "He shirked legal responsibility.

In addition to paying salaries, part-time workers are also responsible for their insurance, taxes, and other issues. But the black workers don't have a work card, so they don't have a bank account, so the winery can only pay cash, which is once the IRS targets you and thinks you are evading taxes, then it will be troublesome. It is better to outsource to the company, the money goes directly to the harvesting company, as for the rest, the winery does not know, and there is no legal responsibility.

The cost of hiring a harvesting company is about $300 to $500 per tonne, mainly because there are many harvesting companies and vineyard management companies in the Napa Valley, and the competition is fierce, and for large customers like Monterrey, the price of the harvesting company is not high.

The average cost of harvesting is $300 to $500 a tonne for hiring your own temporary workers. However, if a harvester is injured at work, the winery may also face being sued in court. Monterena is not one of those small wineries that once they go to court, it has a big impact on their reputation. Outsourcing is different, and when the time comes, "he is not our employee" will shirk responsibility.

There are 5 acres of Merlot on the estate, and they will be the first grapes to be picked on this side of the estate, followed by 20 acres of Zinfandel and finally Cabernet Sauvignon, which is the latest to ripen.

The harvest must be done in a hurry, after which the quality of the wine will deteriorate.

At about 4 o'clock in the morning, Xiao Yifei was woken up by the alarm clock, he hurriedly dressed and ran to the winery. Usually there is not a single ghost in the parking lot at this time, but now the car is full, and it seems that there are a lot of people.

From afar, I heard David's loud voice shouting:

“…… Thomason, you are in charge of plot xx, Ngapoi you are in charge of plot xx......"

The winery is in charge of a special person, and David is the boss in the vineyard, and even though these employees are from the harvesting company, because he represents Party A, these people are also assigned to him. After he made the arrangements, he told the foremen to say a few words about picking carefully and carefully, and said a few words about the other way to beat the alarm bell by deducting money. Everyone started to go.

The first thing to do was the moving lights, which were not yet bright, and had to rely on this thing to provide light.

As soon as everyone arrived in the vineyard, they immediately disappeared into the vineyards, and everywhere they could only hear the sound of rustling grape leaves, but no one else.

After "visiting" the winemaking process, Xiao Yifei also went to the Hanna plot to see the workers picking Chardonnay. I saw them standing in front of the vines, with the basket at their feet, bending down, holding the bunch of grapes in one hand and the cutting knife in the other, picking the top of one vine with a few clicks, and then coming to the other vine to continue the operation, and the movements were very skillful. The whole harvesting process, with the words "skilled", "accurate" and "in place", is the three words that best describe the movements of these people.

When picking the Chardonnay at the mouth of the valley, Xiao Yifei and Hanna were not familiar with each other, and they were embarrassed to disturb everyone's picking work. Now picking vineyards on this side of the manor, he and David are more familiar, so he also got a set of equipment, a pair of scissors, a basket, and planned to follow the pretending to pick grapes, which can be regarded as a picking experience. Xiao Yifei is self-aware, he does not use the cutters of the seasonal workers, but uses scissors.

Coming to the vineyard, Xiao Yifei found the first problem. The bunches of grapes were about 60 centimeters above the ground near the first wire, and he couldn't reach them when he bent over, or he was too tired to bend over, and he had to squat to pick them.

Then he found the second problem, the lack of light outside, there are always a small number of grape leaves blocking the view, and the grape leaves must be turned over to find the bunches.

Xiao Yifei held the bunch of grapes in his left hand, his eyes recognized the ripeness, and the scissors in his right hand served, and the first bunch of grapes arrived smoothly. Put it back in the basket and start looking for a second string......

A man walked from the other end with this large plastic box on his head, and from time to time a picker came out of the vine, and he stopped, waiting for the picker to pour the grapes in his box into his plastic box, and the man continued on walking with the box on his head.

"Hi, man, you're too slow, you should speed up."

It's a lean young man, and now he can't see the skin color clearly, it's not black anyway. It can be judged that he must be a temporary worker, and the guys at the winery and vineyard know him.

Xiao Yifei waved his hand, intending to send him away:

"It's okay, I'll take it slowly, you can go somewhere else."

"It's okay, you're going to slow down the progress of the whole group alone."

The man finally saw it clearly, and said in amazement:

"Hey, you're not from my group, where are you? Why haven't I seen you? ”

"Do you know all these people?"

"Well, we've been dealing with David for a long time, and we know most of the vineyards nearby."

At this time, Bo came over.

"Xiao, what are you doing here, go, we're going to start squeezing."

"So fast?"

"Of course, the sooner you squeeze the better."

The man asked, "Boss, who is he?" ”

"Ah Pei, I won't be a boss in the future, he's the new boss, he's Xiao, he bought the winery, and he paid you this year."

"Ah, Shaw, he's the billionaire?"

The young man named Ah Pei was surprised, and hurriedly said to Xiao, "I'm sorry, I thought you were ...... But you look so young. ”

"It's okay, you guys go on, I'll go and have a look."

Following Bo, with a few bunches of grapes he had picked, Xiao Yifei returned to the road. There is a tractor parked here, and the stainless steel box behind it is already filled with purple-black grapes, which sparkle in the spotlight.

These people are so fast, he has only picked a few strings, and these people have already filled two large boxes. The tractor started, and Xiao Yifei followed the tractor to the winery.

Martin greeted him with a grin: "Boss, your results are good, one string, two strings ......"

Bo scolded him and said, "Go and keep an eye on the fruit." ”

Merlot also had to select the fruit, followed by crushing and pressing. Actually, it's not pressing, it's just squeezing the grapes out of the machine, which is more gentle than the pressing process, basically just breaking the grapes. Unlike white wines, which are fermented with grape juice, red wines are fermented with the skins on. In other words, after the grape skin is broken, the juice is not squeezed out with more force, but the pulp, peel and juice are sent to the outlet.

Merlot can make finished Merlot wine alone, but Chagery Monterena only grows so little Merlot that it certainly doesn't make wine alone, but uses him to harmonize the flavor of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Bo took the wine glass again, shook the flesh vigorously, scooped up some Merlot juice, smelled it, shook it, smelled it again, and finally tasted it, Xiao Yifei also consciously took the cup to carry out such a set of processes. Merlot juice has a distinct plum flavor and a faint grassy smell after trying.

Beau shook his head.

"The quality is medium, and the ripeness is a problem when brewing alone, but fortunately we are blending."

Cameron also said: "Yes, if you don't pay attention to the finished product when you don't pay attention to it alone, it will have a grassy taste. ”

Martin is a guy who doesn't remember what to eat, and he'll gloat again: "Hehe, there's a winery that's depressed this year." ”

Bo reprimanded him again, "Do your own thing, and don't care what others do." ”

Xiao Yifei is happy, this sounds familiar, hehe, Martin doesn't have any oak barrels to inspect now, but he can do a second cleaning job.

Thankfully, Martin wasn't punished this time.

Instead of fermenting with fruit juice, red wine does not need to be clarified on a static basis, and a mixture of pulp, peel and juice is fed directly into the fermentation tank when a certain percentage of sulfur dioxide and other substances are added.

Although Merlot is finally blended into Cabernet Sauvignon, it is generally fermented in separate tanks and blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and the like before it is aged in oak barrels. Therefore, Merlot also has to occupy a separate fermenter.

Red wines are fermented and macerated with the skins on, so that the pigments and tannins from the skins enter the wine, while the natural yeasts from the skins enter the sugar-rich grape blend. Therefore, the fermentation of red wine does not need to be started with yeast, and artificial yeast can be added only on the second or third day when the first can is poured.

In fact, artificial yeast is also cultivated with natural yeast. Casey from the laboratory explained to Xiao Yifei the cultivation of artificial yeast, which is actually to provide nutrients to natural yeast, let yeast multiply, and finally extract yeast to become artificial yeast. However, instead of preparing yeast every year, we get excellent yeast strains from the outside or by ourselves, and then grow a large number of yeasts at a time for cryopreservation, and take them out of the storage box when they need to use them every year.