This YouTube vlog (uploaded Nov 21, 2017) follows Nate and Kara Buchanan helping friends Bob and Gina harvest grapes on their Italian vineyard. The trio (and a small crew) pick 17 rows over about five hours, yielding nearly a metric ton of grapes which they bring to the local Co‑op where grapes are weighed, sampled, de‑stemmed, and processed rapidly. The video also shows informal moments (pizza, pork shoulder) and plugs a blog post reporting $10,493 income for Q3 2017.
Questions this video answers
17 rows.
About 5 hours (with a small lunch break).
Nearly 1,000 kilograms (about a metric ton; Bob cited ~980 kg).
$10,493.
Chapters
Sa.
Good morning from Ripa Transone. We are in one of our favorite places in the world, Bob and Gina's house on the Italian countryside.
So we were here earlier in July, and we've come back to plan our Vespa tour, which we'll be telling you about in later videos. But today we are harvesting grapes here.
On Bob and Gina's vineyard.
We have no clue what we're doing.
We're picking grapes, and I'm eating pizza that we made in the wood burning oven last night for breakfast.
Two days to harvest. Almost. Just the pecorino. Just the pecorino.
Wow. Two and a half.
We had that last little section we.
Had to wait for.
And there are a lot of what.
Six, seven of us.
We've got our bucket, we have our clippers and our rubber boots, and we are heading down into the vineyard. The tractor's waiting for us. From what I understand.
We walk behind the tractor, we clip.
The grapes off, we throw the grapes into the bucket, and then we throw the bucket into the bigger bucket that's on the back of the tractor. Also busted. These babies back out. The work is starting.
Only grapes? No fingers.
They don't pay any extra for fingers. You just pull off all the clusters and throw them in the bucket. And then when your bucket's full, we put it in the trailer on the tractor.
All right, I'm gonna stop videoing. Get in there.
How's it going?
Feeling strong. We're on vine number three, four. Four of.
This is a good one. Someone doesn't want to come off looking like a pro.
Yes.
The tractor's running away.
13 more vines to go. Be easier if you didn't build this on a hill.
It's 11 o'.
Clock.
We started around 8, 30.
30.
And we've done 8 of the 17 vines. So we're almost halfway.
Time is flying.
I just have to keep looking up and reminding myself where I am right.
Now and what we're doing.
Sam.
It is now about 3pm we just finished harvesting 17 rows of grapes. Took about a total of 5 hours with a small lunch break in between. And we almost got an entire trailer load of grapes.
I'm so proud of us.
So 17 rows is only a portion of their vineyard, but it's the red portion that goes to the co op, which is on the other side of the hill. And so the Co op is basically a place, I think, that you can sell your grapes. And then they make wine out of everybody's grapes from around here that sells. Sells their grapes to the Co Op.
So that's where we're going now.
Is that right?
Yeah.
My Co Op description.
Yes, that is.
Y' all ready?
We're ready, boys. Let's hit the road.
Making me look bad. We're not putting that in the video.
Okay. So as soon as we showed up in Co Op, they were already, like, in full swing. I'm going to try to explain the process. So when the tractor arrived at the Co Op, it automatically got weighed, including the trailer that was on the back of it. And then they take a sample with this arm that reaches down into the grapes. Then they bring all of the grapes over, and they pour it into this giant metal container that has two corkscrews in it that pushes all of the grapes into some kind of press D skimmer machine. Basically, in, like, two minutes, all of those grapes that we picked have been de stemmed. And basically, it's just the skins and the seeds and the juice that remain now. And then all the skins are shot down the conveyor belt, and they go over to the compost pile.
Crazy.
So cool.
We get to see just, like, the entire process from now on. Every single time we drink a bottle of wine, we will like, have so much more appreciation for the hard work that goes in to that one bottle. Whether it's good or not, there's a lot of hard work doing it too.
Okay, we're gonna guess the weight. Well, you all are gonna guess it. I know the weight in kilograms that we pick today.
I don't want to guess first.
Yeah, you have to.
No, I don't know.
I'm really bad at kilograms. I don't know. I need some time. Okay, give me a minute. Turn off the camera. Just don't rush me.
She takes guessing very seriously.
573.
573 kilograms.
Okay.
Sweet baby.
Gina, Nate, Me. I go before you. Yeah, I already said my guess was 500, so that was a really good guess.
573. 500.
It's unfair because I would have gone, like, 700.
Why not?
Okay, I'm gonna go 700 because that's what I was gonna guess before they guessed. Now I want to lower it, but I'm gonna stick with 700.
980.
No, I'm not.
He's closest.
You won. We did almost a thousand. That was amazing.
You're happy not because you got the.
Right answer, but because we had more grapes.
Almost did a thousand.
We almost went to thousand.
That's a ton. Yeah, it's a metric ton. It's a metric ton.
Go to todopio. Like 2100.
2100 pounds.
Yeah, we did.
This co op has about three members and the average size of the farm is about 2 hectares. And I think a hectare is close to 2 acres for those of you who live in America. And so basically you have 600 hectares.
So the co op basically allows people whose farms are too small to like really do their own commercial wine to be able to bring it here and get paid for the grapes and either make money or at least break even on growing grapes during the year. So it's a pretty cool setup.
Bob Woke up at 4:30 this morning to put this pork shoulder in the oven that we used last night for pizza and it has some kind of chipotle rub on it. We're checking the temp now and it smells amazing.
Temp's perfect. Yes, we'll just leave it in here till we need it.
Great.
What are we doing with it tonight? We're making pork tacos.
We hope you enjoyed this vlog that was completely devoted to wine. We obviously find this very fascinating and we hope you do too.
Hey guys. I just wanted to let you know about a new post that we just published over on our website. It's our quarter three income and expense report. It's right here on the blog. In this post we show you exactly how much money we made and where it came from in quarter three of 2017. And we also go into exactly how much money we spent. In this post we show you exactly how we made $10,493 in quarter three. And we also break down our expenses for the entire quarter, from transportation to accommodations and spending at destinations. So if you're interested in stuff like this, head over, go check it out. There'll be a link in the description below.
