Wine harvest?
 

My husband and I are planning a trip to Italy next year and had originally plannedon June/July but have now changed our minds to Sept/Oct to help beat the heat and the crowds. We are planning on spending several days in Tuscany. I understand harvest takes place sometime during this time frame. When does it usually start and if we end up coming after it's over will the landscape look just as pretty? If we are there during harvest season, are we going to have problems getting tours scheduled at wineries? Do any close down for harvest purposes? Also, is it possible to "help" harvest at any agrigtourism place that you know of? Any advice on Italy this time of year is appreciated.

I can answer a few of your questions.

Sept./Oct. will probably be okay. There are a lot of variations-altitude of the vines, how North are the vineyards, and which orientation of the vineyards. Grapes facing the South will prepare earlier. Okay, maybe this doesn't give much help but everything "Depends". The time when you're visiting the area there will vines all during that period. Certainly mechanical plucking will move faster.

Visiting the wineries during the harvest isn't good. The wineries will have all of their time processing all of the grapes.

Based on what I've known in Spain and France, the leaves will have changed before the grapes are clipped. So, for visiting the landscape, it will be different than what you're expected but this is nice too.

Sorry, maybe this is not helping. It will be lovely in Italy at this time of the year, so enjoy.

Blackduff

Most of the wineries I've visited have said they would rather do tours during the harvest because there IS so much to see. In the middle of summer, the grapes are growing, there's some trimming going on, etc., but in the fall the picking and crushing has always given us more to see. We were there last year during the last two weeks of Sept and the 1st week in October, and they were picking and crushing around Montalcino.
You can schedule the tours on line so you can check with many of the wineries now about tours.
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ttt

Ok first of all I feel so silly for posting my title as "wine harvest!" How silly is that? I blame sleep deprivation from a newborn.

Anyway, thank you all for your help. I'll have to look into some of the wineries specific websitees.