This year’s harvest is coming to an end and a large proportion of the grapes were harvested by machine once more this year. Johann Grassl, Head of the Department of Viticulture at the Chamber of Agriculture of Lower Austria, estimates that “more than half is read with the machine”.
You will look in vain for statistics on the exact numbers, as the winegrowers do not have to announce them. In the meantime, however, there are also companies that read almost exclusively by machine, such as the Schwertfuhrer winery from Sooß (Baden district). The technology has been used 98 percent of the time for nine years.
Machine partially cheaper and faster
Representatives of the machine ring, the wine-growing school in Klosterneuburg and the Chamber of Agriculture of Lower Austria agree: the main reason why less and less manual work is done is the lack of workers. Domestic workers are difficult to obtain and expensive, but the rates of foreign workers are also increasing.
Furthermore, the time factor plays a major role, because manual harvesting is more time-consuming. If you were to read a hectare of vineyard with the machine, it would take regarding an hour. Depending on the number of helpers, palm readers may need up to a day for this. This depends, among other things, on the variety, the proportion of rot and the design of the foliage wall.
Martin Mehofer from the Weinbauschule Klosterneuburg explains that hardly any winegrower buys a reading device for their own business. The reason for this is the high cost. In practice, therefore, winegrowers join forces or those who do not drive the harvester themselves hire someone to do the work.
Both methods have advantages and disadvantages
Grassl shows differences in price: It is not possible to generalize which type of harvest is cheaper for the winegrower. If the yield from a vineyard is not too great, manual harvesting is probably cheaper. If the yield is very large, the use of the machine is cheaper.
However, a distinction must also be made here as to whether the winegrower has to pay for employees or whether family members help. An advantage of manual harvesting over machines is the ability to remove rot from the grapes before pinching them off. With the harvester, this rot would end up in the mash.
No consequences for the quality
The technology of the new devices used is now so advanced that the quality of the wine does not suffer from the use of the machine, says Markus Göstl, managing director of the machine ring in the Weinviertel region. Grassl emphasizes the advantages of the technology: “The machine can start work in the early hours of the morning. The earlier, the better the quality of the wine, since the grapes reach the press house cool”.
However, what must be considered is that the grapes with the reader must be transported to the farm particularly quickly following harvesting, as oxidation might occur. The reason for this is that most of the grapes burst open during machine harvesting.
