[the-pigeon]

Bah. Difficult is the word. When someone says something is impossible is just means they don't know how to solve the problem.

[dbcurtis]

Or maybe the guy that "knows how to solve the problem" is solving some other problem, not the actual problem.

I count three wine makers among my friends. None of them machine harvest their own grapes, nor will source machine harvested grapes from other growers. It would be very bad for their respective brand images.

[PhasmaFelis]

Does that mean they're convinced the results would be unsatisfactory, or just that their rustic image is more valuable than increased efficiency?

[dbcurtis]

Some of both. Machine harvested grapes have a lot of field run, leaves and twigs, etc, and also the grapes are not as gently handled. So you at least have to keep the larger pieces of cruft out of the fermentation vats. But marketing image is also a big part of it, rightly or wrongly, which is all top-line dollars, less cost of harvesting crew, of course, but it pencils out. We are talking premium wines here, not two-buck-Chuck.