Victorious Vintage – 5 Tips for Vintners to Get the Best Out of the 2025 Harvest

Victorious Vintage – 5 Tips for Vintners to Get the Best Out of the 2025 Harvest

Photo by Kym Ellis on Unsplash

Harvest season waits for no one. The vines don’t care if you’re behind on paperwork, still negotiating with the bottling supplier, or pretending not to notice that your best secateurs disappeared last year. For those of us in the wine business, vintage rolls around with all the subtlety of a freight train.

With 2025 looming on the calendar, it’s time to get practical. No overcomplication. Just five focused tips that will help you get the most out of your upcoming harvest, without needing to reinvent the wheel—or the barrel.

1. Get Your Machinery in Shape Before It’s Too Late

There’s nothing quite like a grape harvester breaking down right as the fruit hits peak ripeness. Skip the drama and give your machinery a proper once-over well before harvest kicks off. Maintenance beats miracles.

If you’re running a Braud, you’re in good company. Be sure to source quality Braud grape harvester parts ahead of time. Spare belts, filters, and those oddly specific bolts you can never find when you need them—get them now. The vines won’t pause while you wait on shipping.

2. Don’t Wing Your Labor Planning

Asking your cousin’s friend to help pick grapes worked when you were running four rows and paying in cases of shiraz. These days, you need a reliable team that shows up on time, understands what “gentle handling” means, and doesn’t flatten half the row trying to use the quad bike.

Start sorting your harvest crew early. Consider working with labor hire firms if needed, or sweet-talk last year’s team back with slightly better food and marginally improved working conditions. Trust is earned, especially when it’s 6 a.m. and raining.

3. Taste More, Guess Less

No one wants underripe fruit. No one wants overripe fruit either. Every vineyard talks about “harvest timing” like it’s sacred, then some of us go and eyeball it anyway. Stop that.

Taste the fruit. Test it properly. Sugar levels, acidity, tannin development—yes, they all matter. So, it’s not just about the numbers, but how the fruit actually tastes. Walk the rows. Check the different blocks. Take notes like you’re trying to impress a high school chemistry teacher. Then harvest accordingly.

4. Sort the Logistics Before You’re Covered in Grape Juice

Harvest doesn’t just mean picking grapes. It means bins, trailers, forklifts, fermenters, hoses, and more hoses. It’s always the hoses. If you haven’t mapped out your harvest flow, now’s the time.

Figure out where the fruit is going once it’s picked. Where it gets sorted, and where it goes next. Every unnecessary step between vine and tank is a chance to lose quality or trip over a pump cable. Tighten up your setup so your team can work smarter, not just faster. The wine will thank you.

5. Don’t Forget the Endgame

It’s easy to get caught up in harvest mode and forget why you’re doing all this in the first place. Great wine doesn’t just happen in the vineyard. It comes from intention. From understanding what kind of wine you’re trying to make, to handling the fruit accordingly from the start.

Talk to your winemaker, even if that’s you, and get clear on the style. Keep that in mind when you’re deciding on picking order, maceration times, or how much to press. A little forward thinking now saves a lot of second-guessing later.

The 2025 harvest will arrive whether you’re ready or not. With solid prep, the right parts, a few trusted hands, and an actual plan, it can be your smoothest yet. Or at least smoother than last year. Which, frankly, is a perfectly respectable goal.