Harvest is a really big deal in wine country; and for good reason! It’s a year of hard work coming to fruition, and at the same time, it’s the beginning of another lengthy yet exciting journey from grape to glass (AKA the winemaking process). Grape harvests in Missouri generally begin in late August and continue through the middle of October. During this time, dedicated grape-growers spend long hours (candidate for understatement of the year) harvesting the fruit they’ve spent the last year nurturing so we can enjoy our favorite award-winning, delicious wines.

In Missouri, there are 1,700 acres of grapes, tended by 425 grape growers. In a recent study, we were ranked in the top ten grape producing states in the U.S. Yields can vary greatly from year to year and vineyard to vineyard. On average each acre yields three to four tons of grapes. In 2013 this led to the production of 1.25 million gallons of wine. Impressive, right?

If you’d like a more in depth look at harvest in Missouri wine country, watch this episode of Feast TV in which you can go on a day of harvesting Norton grapes with Stone Hill Winery’s vineyard manager, Nick Pehle.

Harvest is a lot of long hours and hard work for those in the vineyards of Missouri wine country, but it’s often been said that nothing worth doing is easy. We certainly think the fruits of their labor are well worth it. How about you?