Gearing up for hand picking

Often Amarone production is cited as one of the wine world’s most labour intensive processes and with good reason.

To get things right does take a lot of work from the handpicking, to hand selecting, to grape drying and constant reviewing of the dried grapes, to the long fermentation, blending, barrel aging. bottle ageing etc. etc.

But even before any of that starts there is work to be done and in our pursuit of wines that are pristine expressions of the vineyards, cleaning the very boxes the grapes are carried in is no mean task!

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Amarone grape drying boxes lined up waiting for cleaning

Although not as romantic as straw mats we made the switch several years ago to these white boxes, the choice was one of hygene, here everything shows up and can be cleaned away.

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White PVC boxes – hygienic and easy to clean

 

The next step is to wet the boxes, softening up the residue and getting them ready to enter the box washer.

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This pre-clean allows the automated ‘box washer’ to do its work

The ‘box washer’ is like a large powerful dishwasher and it successfully annihilates any residue left on our boxes

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the ‘box-washer’
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After

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boxes are then stacked by hand and placed in columns then with the aid of the forklift they will be put aside in clean condition to await the first harvest, which this year – judging by the incredible sunshine  – could only be around 10 weeks away!

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Each box is checked for residue then hand stacked
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Ready for harvest!

 

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