Learn about the wine harvest process at Page Springs Cellars

Being a winemaker can be stressful, but if there's one thing that's more important than anything else they have to deal with, it's when to pick the grapes from the vine.

"If I decide to pick early, I'm going to make a much lighter, fruitier, higher acid wine," said Eric Glomski of Page Springs Cellars.

"You let it hang longer, you most likely will get more color and red grapes, but you're going to get a lot more sugar as well, and your alcohol comes up," he said.

He went on to explain viscosity changes and other scientific elements, but the gist of it is that being a control freak doesn't mix with growing grapes for wine.

"In the cellar, I can control most things. I can control the temperature of the building. I can control the temperature of my fermentation. If I want to put specific types of yeast in to ferment with, I can. But out here (in the vineyard), it's a matter of trusting the universe," he explained.

A year of pruning, thinning, pest management, weather and a dozen other factors lead up to the decision to pick literally two days before the event.

Volunteers get notified, pruners get handed out, and at 6am one September morning in Cornville, grapes for a Page Springs wine are harvested.

If you'd like to taste the wine made from the grapes picked this season, it probably won't get bottled until next year. But this isn't about speed.

Page Springs Cellars
1500 N. Page Springs Road
Cornville, AZ 86325
pagespringscellars.com