THERE ARE TWO ways to harvest grapes – by hand or machine. It’s a choice and a change.

You can bring in several people (skilled wine harvesters) who cut the grapes with hand clippers or a knife, bunch by bunch, place them in crates, and carry them to tractor bin holders. The work is done during daylight hours, 8 hours per day. Hand-picking is more expensive but preferred by some winemakers, depending on the type of wine they produce. Hand-picking is more of the romantic tradition of winemaking.

Or

You can use a huge over-the-row harvesting machine (introduced in the 1960s) that travels through the stationary rows of vines using rubber or fiberglass rods, thwacking off the grapes into large reservoirs. It’s rough handling for the grapes and doesn’t exclude rotten or poor-quality grapes.

It’s faster harvesting than hand cutting, driven by one person who can also work at night because of the intense headlights on top of the tractor. (It’s a little like the sci-fi movies where aliens arrive at your front door with blinding white lights.) They cannot function on steep hillside slopes.

The machine is a significant change in harvesting wine. It’s an available choice for winemakers.

Someone saw the possibility of change and decided to lead by creating this wine-harvesting machine.

Look around you at the choices people have in their work and lives.

Where has change happened?

What value does the change have?

What effect does the change and choice have on people and our world?

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

Please share my Daily with your tribes.
What about this for you also – Can’t or Won’t Change.

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