10390 Piedmont's Moscato d'Asti harverst starts

...and finishes.
Last week saw a floury of activity as the long anticipated 2008 [I]vendemia[/I] (harvest) got underway here in Piedmont. Once again the vineyards were full of workers hard at work but relieved to be getting the carefully nutured grapes safely in. In the valleys tractor and trailers dominate the roads (slowly!) and the most noticeable jams are at the entrance to each cantina as everyone arrives at once with their crop of grapes.

We picked our own vineyards on Sunday and Monday. Sunday here in Castelnuovo Belbo and Monday in our rented vineyards on the higher Lange slopes above Cossano Belbo. The good news is that the graps are in excellent condition (strong winds last week dried everything out nicely and cleared away any threat of humidty driven rot); the bad news is that the bunches are much lighter than last year. So a great vintage but with lowere production than 2007.

[URL="http://www.stayinpiedmont.com/pages/new/Vineyard_diary/vineyarddiary.html"]You can read more about our harvest here.[/URL]
[IMG]http://www.stayinpiedmont.com/images/this%20weeks%20picture/moscatro_harvest_2008.jpg[/IMG]