‘Tis the season for Harvest! Find out what harvest means and get a glimpse from Virginia to France through our lenses!

I am writing from France at the moment. This is with much excitement as I feel really lucky to be here. So first, big shoutout to all of WiW’s supporters for making our events so meaningful. I can’t say it enough: it wouldn’t be as much fun if we didn’t have so many amazing people show up to each event. So another big thank you and cheers to y’all. We hope to keep learning, doing and having fun with you all.

We won’t be having our monthly events in September or October because Emily and I are working harvest! More on that in a minute.

While we’re out of the office, we want to continue to support organizations who we’d usually donate event proceeds to. We’d love to encourage you to donate the money you would have spent attending a WiW event. We’ll be highlighting causes and organizations on our Instagram and website through the next couple months (and always!).

Many recent news stories have given us a heavy heart. This week, we’re thinking about SB 8. We hope you’ll stay informed with us, and find some fire to recognize that this is a fight greater than that on reproductive rights. This week, we’re encouraging you to donate using this link which splits your donation amount among 10 organizations fighting for abortion access in Texas.

If you’re not able to donate monetarily, we hope you’ll do the important work of encouraging people around you to pay attention and get informed.

Phew, OK. Important work is hard work! Now we’ve educated ourselves about that, grab a glass and take a few sips. And take another sip into this:

For the next month, I will be working at Le Soula. Located about NW ~45 minutes from Perpignan, located in the Rousillon region of France, just north of the Pyrenees Mountains.

While I’m in France, Emily is in good ole’ Virginny, working with one of, arguably the best winery in the state: Early Mountain Vineyards. You may have seen the awesome videos and photos that Emily has added to Instagram stories!

SO WHAT IS HARVEST?

‘Tis the season in the northern hemisphere. Here in France, and Virginia, for example, grapes are reaching peak ripeness levels, making them suitable for turning those ideal sugar meets acidity levels into … WINE.

In addition to ripeness, ideal acidity levels, grapes being physically “harvested off the vine,” harvest means so many things:

anticipation! What day will we actually start harvest? Is it going to rain? A little rain? (Might be just fine) vs. A lot of rain? (The grapes could split open, fungal rot can creep in, they might be too waterlogged that you lose concentration of flavors). Are the birds attacking them more and more because they too recognize these berries are really delicious?
planning! What materials do we need to get together? Are all my machines ready to go? Are they cleaned / disinfected, etc.? what’s the plan with each of those grapes that we will harvest on tuesday?
- Soon after the grapes are harvested, they are to be processed meaning they are taken in their berry form and the first decisions a winemaker makes are here: are we going to use some of these red grapes to make rose? are we going to remove the stems here or include them in during fermentation? do we want to use any oak when this white wine is done fermenting? if so, what type of oak?
exhaustion! Long days sometimes back-to-back to take advantage of those occasions when the grapes are READY! RIGHT! (and I mean… right) NOW!
grand finale! This is what all the work up until now is for! It is the time!

Want to learn more? This Wine Folly article does a great job of laying it all out.

So, what does this mean for Emily and Megan? See the images below for a quick snapshot at what each of us is doing!

EMILY @ EARLY MOUNTAIN VINEYARDS

Emily has been an apprentice vigneron (in the fanciest of terms) in the Shenandoah Valley at Midland, a family-owned intentional and experimental vineyard, since the early spring. Now she is literally harvesting the fruits of her labor. Emily is the harvest intern at Early Mountain Vineyards, one of Virginia’s most highly regarded wineries. They’re in the cellar every Thursday doing all the things Megan just mentioned above. Here’s what a day might look like:

Fruit comes in starting early in the morning and is pressed into juice (for whites and rose reds). A press cycle requires a lot of hands on deck to load tons and tons (literally) of grapes into the press, so Emily falls in where needed there. While the press does its thing, Emily samples barrels and tanks of wine to measure sugar levels and temperature to keep a check on fermentation, which helps inform the winemakers’ decisions.

There’s also always something to be cleaned in a cellar, which takes up most of the time in the day. The grapes deserve the best! But actually, having clean tanks and machinery is very important to control flavors and characteristics. Wine making is a lot of science. And by the time the day is done, Emily is soaking wet and has a whole outfit change to drive home to Richmond.

Emily says seeing the physically processes of how everything comes together is super educational and makes everything we talk about with tasting and drinking wine click.

MEGAN @ LE SOULA

This has been a long time coming as COVID got in the way of last year’s plan to do harvest. But fortunately, Wendy Wilson, head of Le Soula, graciously still took me in this year.

My goal is to understand the art of quickly rolling their own cigarettes. Just kidding - in addition to that, I want to get a grasp for what goes into their sustainability practices here.

Le Soula wines are biodynamic and certified by Demeter, a governing body that regulates Biodynamic wines. There’s much more to their efforts than just the certification, although it can certainly help to gain consumers with the Demeter label on their wine.

Due to the high altitude vineyards of Le Soula harvest is much later than surrounding areas - unlike the rest of the area’s lower altitude vineyards and even to the flatter plains where they could even be finishing harvest right now. Other elements of when to start harvest or when "to pick” might be:

The quality of the fruit, whether it is deteriorating in quality due to the birds getting to it or wild boars (yes, it’s actually quite a big problem!)
Did it rain a lot recently? Then the grapes might be less concentrated in flavors, more diluted. If so, maybe it’s best to wait a day or two for the water to dry up a bit. Is it going to rain a lot in the next few days? If so, we might want to pick now to save the dilution and possibly even the splitting of the grapes due to swelling from water.
How are the sugar levels? Are they ready to go to produce a good level of alcohol? Or are the grapes to green (literally and figuratively) and they won’t produce a good quality wine yet.

These are all things Wendy is considering for the next few days!

Stay tuned for what lessons are to come!

Thinking of fall approaching, the new moon and setting new intentions - like ways to support others doing good work in the world.

If you have ideas on how to link up either virtually for now (until November) or in person when we are done with Harvest, shoot us an email at womeninwine.rva@gmail.com <3