10/6/2019,20:15
It’s harvest time in La Rioja! Throughout the last few days, we have witnessed firsthand the frenetic activity of the harvest in the seemingly endless vineyards that we have walked through in La Rioja. Workers use “corquetes” (curved knives) to cut a bunch of grapes from the vine, place it in a bushel basket, which is then placed in a small dumpster-sized container. A front-end loader dumps the grapes into a large wagon towed by a tractor which then travels to the grape processing facility for the beginning of the fermentation process.
The result is over 250 million liters of Rioja wine every year!
During our pilgrimage we’ve had to dodge the large tractors as they repeatedly transport the grapes to the processing facility throughout the harvest which lasts 30-40 days.
As we leave the Rioja region, I recall the many biblical scenes that have wine or winemaking as their central focus: The wedding at Cana, the parable of the workers in the vineyard and the Last Supper, to name just a few.
One thing that I noticed while walking through the vineyards is that there is a lot of equipment moving about but there are few laborers actually picking the grapes. And we’ve seen signs in villages asking for laborers. This reminds me of Christ’s words, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” So what are we, each and everyone of us—laborers all, doing to bring God’s kingdom to fruition on this earth?
I know that in La Rioja even Fr. Tony is helping with the harvest as the following pictures show!
Jim Olshefski
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