The work at a vineyard is never done.  You have to prune, train, plant, pick all in the vineyard before you ever get to the winemaking process. A big part of that process is protecting the vines and their fruit from wildlife. We have a 12 foot fence around the grapes to protect them from the deer and traps, that capture not kill, the varmints that can go under the fence. We also have to protect them from aerial assault as the fruit begins to ripen. To guard the ripening fruit from being picked through by our feathered foes we need to fasten bird netting to all the rows of vines. The rigging of those nets can take hours depending on the man power. “Many hands make light work” is what my father said when we showed up for vineyard duty this past saturday.We thankfully had plenty of help this past saturday and it only took 2 hours.  The work is a bit tedious.  You have to unroll hundreds of yards of light netting that looks and feels a lot like a badminton net. If you’ve ever hung a badminton net you know that it can get tangled very easily.  We’ve worked out a system of folding and storing them so that doesn’t happen to often.  You then need to clip them both sides of the net together with plastic c-clips. You repeat this process as long as it takes because if the birds get the grapes before you do all you hard work you did in the months leading up to this day was wasted.