Winemaking!

It involves a lot of lugging grape bins around using a pallet jack (and forklift, though not operated by me). The grape bins, which had been left in a refrigerated container (some for one night, some for two), were taken out and lined up on the concrete slap beside the winery building. From there, they were to be lifted by forklift (with a special bin-tipping attachment) and tipped into the top of the cusher/destemmer. That, as you may have guessed, is a machine which separates the grapes from their stems.

This is accomplished by a means of a spinning scew-like propellor, which sends the bunches into the interior of a perforated steel cylinder. The holes are big enough to let the grapes pass, as centrifugal force flings them ourwards, but not big enough to let through the stems (to which, in their ripness, they are only loosely attached). Those are carried along the inside of the cylinder to the nether-parts of the contraption. The grapes, in a partially-crushed form, fall from the bottom of the machine into a pump, which sends them through a long transparent plastic hose (4 inches in diameter) and into the top of a large steel tank.

I was nobly stationed at the rear-end of the machine, from which the steps are spewn into large nylon burlap bags. I was kept busy stomping them down with my boots (now wine-colored), and making sure the opening was clear, so that the stems would not clog it up.