Last week I spent a morning at James Arthur Vineyard in Raymond, Neb., watching a crew finish one of the earliest grape harvests ever in Nebraska. I was there for a story I wrote for yesterday’s paper, about how this year’s grapes are going to produce better Nebraska wines than ever before. Check it out here.
Met this three-legged, very friendly cat while I waited to go into the grapevines.
In the vineyard.
After the crew finished, we got to see how the grapes are turned into juice. It involves lots of machines and tubes. The grapes all get dumped into huge square bins, which are then dumped into this machine, where they get de-stemmed and then rush through a tube and into the giant juicer. Then the juice rolls through another tube and into a vat. After fermenting and aging a few other steps, the juice becomes wine.
Grapes going into the machine.
Stems.
Grapes rushing through a tube into the juicer.
Juice running into a huge holding bin.
