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Grape Harvest
Provence is a wine producing region of France. For much of our walk we passed by vineyards. Because our walk took place in early October, the grapes were ripe and ready for picking.
Picking was done either by hand or by machine. In the picture above, the grapes in the trailer behind the tractor had been picked by hand. Each grower decides on how their grapes will be picked.
Mechanical Picker
We also saw mechanical pickers. The machine above rolls down the lines of vines and picks the grapes. Amazingly, the machine picks the grapes off the stems. The only problem with mechanical pickers is that they are unable to pick the grapes very close the ground (approximately the bottom six inches).
The driver of the mechanical picker has a view downwards that is used to line up the picker with a row of the vine. This picker was very friendly and he even took the time to allow one of our group to go for a ride while he picked the grapes from two rows of vines.