Mud, sweat and tears…
When many of us picture a wine harvest, we imagine a leisurely stroll through the vines. We picture wicker baskets full of pristine grapes, straw hats and a linen shirt fluttering in the breeze, and perhaps a long lunch under the shade of an ancient oak tree.
The reality? Well, it’s usually a little less La Dolce Vita and a little more Apocalypse Now.
Harvest is a frantic, adrenaline-fuelled sprint against the clock (and the weather gods). It's carried out by an army of dedicated pickers working long, back-breaking hours – sometimes in the dead of night, often in blazing sunshine.
It’s easily the most exhausting, anxiety-inducing few weeks of a winemaker’s year.
Yet, ask any of them what they really think about harvest, and they’ll all tell you the same thing: these are the days they live for. The exact moment their wines truly begin their lives.
Because Naked Angels fund independent winemakers directly, we get a front-row seat to this unfiltered reality.
So, as the Northern Hemisphere harvest kicks into high gear, we’re jumping headfirst into the madness. Starting with ‘The Pick’ – what happens in the vineyard.
To show you what it really takes, we’re heading to the Loire Valley to catch up with two of our founding winemakers, Joost and Miguela Villebois, who have been crafting some of our bestselling wines since Naked launched back in 2008.
A 24/7 obsession, all year long
Of course, if you ask a winemaker when harvest truly begins, they’ll probably chuckle and tell you it’s not really a question of when it begins… it’s when does it end?
For Joost and Miguela, the preparation is relentless.
“In truth, we prepare for harvest all year round,” they explain. “As soon as the schedule gives us a bit of breathing room, we are already looking ahead to the next crop. This means continuous planning around human resources and equipment: upgrading machinery, modernising tools, tweaking quality protocols, updating cellar software, and running trial experiments.”
But if we’re talking the business end of harvest, for Joost and Miguela, things begin ramping up around May, when they start recruiting their seasonal harvest team.
The real show begins mid-summer with véraison. That’s when the berries reach proper plumpness and start slowly changing colour. Red grapes change from green to red, purple, or black; white grapes become translucent and golden.
Picking is still a few weeks away at this point, but from this moment on, winemakers are on high-alert.
Literally, every hour and every minute counts.
Timing. Is. Everything.
As Joost and Miguela will tell you, making a great wine genuinely comes down to hours.
“The whole game is picking on the exact right day, at the precise moment when aromatic potential, freshness, salinity and acidity hit their sweet spot.”
During this time, winemakers and their growers are out in the fields multiple times a day. They are walking the rows, tasting grapes, hunting for that singular, fleeting moment of perfect ripeness.
But Mother Nature doesn’t do timetables. The contrast between vintages can be staggering, which means winemakers can’t rest on their laurels – you simply can’t treat any two years the same.
Joost and Miguela fondly remember the 2023 harvest as one of the finest in recent memory. “The ripening timing was absolutely spot on. We had glorious, dry, sunny weather from start to finish. Free from weather pressure, we were able to pick each block at optimum ripeness.”
Fast forward to 2024, and the script was entirely flipped. It was a late, incredibly wet vintage that had to be executed at a frantic, breakneck pace.
Without their exceptional seasonal crew, navigating the mud and the pressure would have been nigh-on impossible.
Experience is a great leveller, as Alberto Tonetto, Joost and Miguela’s brilliant chief winemaker notes: “After many vintages, deciding when to pick doesn't stress me out as much as it used to. I’ve come to know our terroirs inside out... Today, the real challenge is pre-harvest logistics: getting the cellar prepped so every single cog in the machine is ready to turn the second we hit GO.”
Crunch point: the Villebois Sauvignon Blanc
To show you the difference a single harvest decision can make, we’re going to look at a choice Joost and Miguela recently made with their bestselling Naked wine – the Villebois Sauvignon Blanc.
It starts with an elephant in the vineyard…
One of the biggest challenges facing winemakers all over the world right now is climate change. Across Europe, we are seeing increasingly warm, early vintages.
“Given current climate trends, heatwaves and dry spells are our biggest fears,” says Miguela. “Extreme temperatures risk stalling the vines or shrivelling the grapes.”
Vines react to heat incredibly fast, causing sugar levels to skyrocket. This creates a massive headache for winemakers: a total disconnect between ‘technological maturity’ (sugar and acidity) and ‘phenolic maturity’ (tannins and aromatics).
“A few years back, grapes gained about 0.5% potential alcohol per week after véraison,” Alberto notes. “Today, that jump can be as high as 3% in a single week!”
To protect their Sauvignon Blanc’s signature crisp, mineral edge, they made a calculated choice to bring their harvest forward. By picking right at the onset of maturity, they beat the late-season heatwaves and lock in vibrant, natural acidity.
This allowed them to craft their stunning Sauvignon at a naturally lower 10.5% ABV.
Not only does this perfectly match modern palates increasingly looking for fresher, lighter wines, it also cleverly navigated recent UK duty increases – meaning the wine remains brilliant value for Angels, without sacrificing a single ounce of quality.
It takes a village to harvest a vine
The science is one thing, but a harvest is ultimately powered by people.
For winemakers like Joost, Miguela and Alberto, the thing at the absolute top of their minds during harvest-time is their crew. “I need to ensure good team dynamics, meticulous work, and above all, strict safety to prevent accidents," Alberto says. "That is a constant source of pressure.”
You are relying on your picking crews for your livelihood. The competition can be fierce, and you need to look after your team brilliantly because other growers and winemakers want them too.
When you pop the cork on a bottle, you’re tasting the hard graft of those picking crews, the cellar hands and the winemakers. You’re also tasting the direct impact of Angel funding. This sense of community and connection is the extended family at the very core of Naked Wines.
Next up: the Press
The work certainly doesn't stop when the last bucket is tipped. Over the following weeks, the Villebois team will be glued to the cellar, closely monitoring fermentations and beginning the delicate blending trials to ensure the wine is ready to shine.
So, what comes next? Into the winery we go…
Next week, we’ll leave the Loire Valley on a detour to South Africa, to look at what happens when the grapes come in from the cold and the nerve-wracking winery decisions begin.
Harvest at a glance: the geeky bits
The timeline: in the Northern Hemisphere, harvest typically runs from August to October. However, with our warming climate, things are shifting. Nowadays, many winemakers in warmer spots (like Stephen Millier over in California) are firing up the tractors in late July! Cooler climates, naturally, need more time on the vine to coax out those flavours.
Grape expectations: grapes don't all ripen at once. Organised winemakers will make sure they’re harvesting a mix of grapes and vineyards so they can be picked in an orderly queue over a number of weeks. Grapes destined for sparkling wine (like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir) are picked first to preserve their zippy acidity. Next up are aromatic whites, like Joost and Miguela’s beloved Sauvignon Blanc, picked to capture that fresh, crisp flavour. Later you'll see reds like Merlot and Shiraz coming in. The latecomers are the thick-skinned grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo, which need every last drop of autumn sunshine to soften their tannins.
Man vs. Machine: you’ll hear a lot of debate about hand-picking versus machine harvesting. It usually comes down to the terrain and the vines. If you’ve got gnarly, old bush vines, or you’re farming on the impossibly steep slopes of the Mosel or the Douro (where a tractor would simply tip over), you literally have to hand-pick. On flatter vineyards with well-trained vines, modern mechanical harvesters are brilliant for getting fruit in quickly to beat an incoming storm.
Timing tools: when harvest gets close, winemakers employ a mix of science and gut instinct. Some will use a nifty bit of kit called a refractometer – a handheld tool you squint through like a tiny telescope. It measures the refraction of light through the grape juice to tell you exactly how much sugar is in the grape (sounds mad, but it's true). Although science only goes so far; most winemakers will spend hours walking the rows, tasting the grapes, chewing the seeds, and relying on years of practical experience.
The Weather Gods: long, hot, dry days followed by cool nights are a winemaker's dream. Rain is the absolute enemy. As our US winemaker Scott Kelley will tell you, rain right before harvest is a nightmare. It swells the grapes (diluting the flavour), splits the skins, and creates a damp playground for rot and mould. Winemakers typically want their fruit completely dry when it comes off the vine.
Being fashionably late: what happens if you just... leave grapes on the vine? If you’re in the right spot, with the right variety, you get late-harvest wines. The grapes slowly shrivel and raisin, concentrating the sugars for beautifully intense wines – including many dessert wines.
Want to see how a wine changes year on year?
Here is the greatest truth of the wine world: Mother Nature never writes the exact same script twice.
Some wines are wildly different each year, changing their personality and profile based on the weather gods. Others are a masterclass in winemaking consistency. Half the fun of being a wine lover is tasting that evolution.
By signing up to our Never Miss Out subscription, you can ensure your allocation of future harvests from your favourite winemakers, like Joost and Miguela Villebois, is always secured.
You get the very best of the vintage, delivered straight to your door, without lifting a finger.
