By Adam Donnelly

Harper’s Trail harvesting this years crop

Sep 26, 2016 | 5:10 PM

KAMLOOPS — With the turning of the season comes harvest time for many local producers. Harper’s Trail Winery is in the process of taking in and processing this years grapes, so that by next year at this time, they’ll be ready to hit the shelves as local wine.

Today the pickers were harvesting Pinot Noir grapes, at the vineyard on the north side of the South Thompson River. Caleb Hanaghan, Production Manager at Harper’s Trail, says the crop this year was a good one.

“Everything’s looking fairly ripe, but we’ve section off about 20% of this block that we’re going to avoid picking… just to ensure the sugar levels [in the grapes] are where they need to be,” Hanaghan explained. “We’re hoping to harvest about 8 tonnes, which could equate to about 6400 litres of juice on the skins. After we press it off the skins we’re looking at about 5000 litres [which is] roughly 5 or 600 cases of wine.”

This will be the winery’s second vintage of the Pinot Noir. The 2015 vintage will be released to the public as of November 26th. Hanaghan says he gets immense satisfaction from seeing the whole process of winemaking; from growing the grapes, to the harvest, right up until the time the finished product is served.

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“One of my favourite parts of making the wine is standing over top of the tank, getting the smells, seeing everything that’s happening,” Hanaghan said. “The actual process of the yeast converting the sugar into ethanol, and just seeing the final product. Once it’s in the bottle and you see people enjoying it in there tasting room… [There’s] just nothing like it.”