In Mendoza, Argentina Harvest 2012 has arrived. Harvest is the culmination of a year’s worth of work, preparation, anticipation, and often anxiety.

You can work in the industry all your life and still never work a harvest. It’s a bit like eating food that you don’t know the origin of. To truly appreciate a wine, we believe everyone must work harvest a some point in theirs lives.

Harvest 2012 Mendoza, Argentina, was the opportunity for two visitors from San Franicsco, CA.

At a pace much slower than the professionals, we snipped, clipped and cut our way through a row of vines, being mindful to take of the clusters and avoid the bees.

Our bounty was taken directly to the Bodega for sorting.

Where we then lined up to catch any leaves we might have missed in the harvest process…

For a better understanding of the next step, we followed enologists Nicolas and Laura to taste the current state of fermentation on this week’s harvest.

Nicolas explains what he learns by observing the color of the skins. To sum it up, the less color that remains, means they’ve given more to the final fermentation must.

Laura collects a sample to observe color, aromas and taste.

At the end of the day, our harvest buckets are empty.

But Harvest 2012 is far from over. Every hour another tractor or truck comes in with more grapes. Working quickly and efficiently to minimize time between basking in the sun on vine, to fermenting in a tank.

All of this, because 12-36 months later, wine enthusiasts like ourselves, want to enjoy that bottle. It is just a little sweeter knowing your sweat and tears are part of that bottle.