A Day of the Grape Harvest and the Lagar

The story

For a few weeks at the end of summer, the vineyards of the Alentejo fill with families and friends for the vindima — the grape harvest, still done largely by hand. Guests spend the morning in the rows with the pickers, scissors and crates in hand, learning to choose the bunches that go to the press. After lunch in the estate's shade comes the part no one forgets: the lagar, where the day's grapes are trodden barefoot in the old way, ankles deep in must, to the rhythm of traditional harvest songs. Some estates still press in granite or stone lagars beside great clay amphorae, exactly as their grandparents did; the juice that runs clear from this gentle treading becomes the year's wine.