Harvest in Southeastern New England

We went to help our friend, Dave, who is the vineyard manager at Saltwater Farm Vineyard pick his Chardonnay grapes. We arrived around 8 a.m. and our friend Barry was already there. We met the owner, Michael Connery and James, Dave's assistant gave us our harvest shears and directed us to the rows that we would be working on. The yellow picking lugs were already laid out and there were people already working. The morning was cool, perfect for picking grapes. More people arrived as the morning wore on and I overheard James say that there were almost 30 people helping to harvest. Everyone was enjoying picking grapes. I heard one person say that she loved harvest so much that she might have to move to California.
We may have picked a total of 9 lugs in 2 hours between the 3 of us. It sounds really slow going but we were following James' instructions to knock out the rot on the grapes when we saw it. This kind of field work is essential in order to bring in the best possible grapes for pressing. As we left, we saw Dave transporting the stainless steel fermenter to Stonington Vineyards who would be pressing the grapes for him. The grapes in the yellow lugs were in a separate truck not far behind. It's a fun time in the vineyard. We'll be there again this morning.