Harvest time in ye olde Ribera del Duero

Grape harvest arrived to Ribera del Duero last week and I wore my big blue rubber boots just in case.
I had never witnessed the harvest before first hand and I have to say that the whole experience was aided by an absolutely stunning day. We drove up to the town of Aguilera, near Aranda del Duero, early last Friday morning to meet up with my friend Gema's uncle Florien, a venerated grape producer with vineyards that have been in their family for generations. It was the second day of harvest and in general the motto seems to be "we're ready when they are". I can understand it. Like any annual crop, you wait for the meat of it all year long, and like anything else, you also risk the wrath of Mother Nature and the fact that anything can happen at any time to destroy a year's work. This becomes even trickier as the fall harvest time rolls around as the temperature begins to change and there is a greater likelihood of storms or frosts that can mildew or damage the vines. This year seemed particularly tragic in Ribera del Duero, as an icy frost hit just a week before harvest and wreaked havoc on a huge percentage of vines. Driving through the countryside you could see a line across the vineyards like a treeline in the mountains. All of the lower-lying plots of vines were stained bright red, their leaves and fruit irreparably damaged by the freeze, but as the plots moved out of valleys and up hills, the vines were intact.
Florien was lucky this year. Despite the fact that his overall production was down 40% (he blames it mainly on the climate change, global warming), his vines were untouched by frost and gleaming with juicy fruit (that I just couldn't get into my mouth fast enough - hoping it would ferment in my belly, maybe?).
He and his son and daughter were leading a group of workers in the harvest. Harvesting everything by hand (for much much better quality wines), they showed us how to clip the bunches of grapes close to their "stems", to look at the grapes to make sure that they weren't damaged or diseased and to then lay them gently in the 15-20 kilo boxes. Between the four of us, Gema and Carmen took on more directional, supportive and photographic roles, while Carlos and I put our back into it. We were extremely proud of the four boxes that each of us filled (in the time that the seasoned workers had probably filled 5x that amount), and I was delighted to calculate that we had probably just picked enough grapes for approx. 120 bottles of wine. Not too shabby. But oh, my back was aching. Good thing I wore those rubber boots.