MISSOULA - A tradition for the community that dates back to 2003 is returning to 10 Spoon Winery in Missoula.
Co-owner Andy Sponseller will once again be hosting a community grape harvest on Saturday.
“We've made an awful lot of wine out of this vineyard over the years and people have had a hand in getting the grapes down that end up in the bottles,” Sponseller explained.
There are some 5,000 vines on the vineyard and all the grapes must come down. Kicking off the harvest are the grapes used to make for white wine.
“These are our san pupin grapes, which makes our go into the sun white wine,” 10 Spoon Winery administrator Kristin Brom told MTN News.
"Yeah, so, got nice pruners here, chopping halfway between, then we're gonna start filling our bucket here,” Brom demonstrated on Friday.
Sponseller says this year's crop is full and colorful,” this year, it's nice temperatures right on into mid-October. And that makes for good grape growing.”
But growing in Western Montana doesn’t happen easily.
Back in October of 2020, the winery lost all of its product due to an early snowfall which forced the team to go back to the roots and get creative on how to save their grapes.
“It's over 20 tons of grapes. And that makes a lot of wine. So there's a lot of financial at stake here,” Sponseller noted.
The grape harvest runs from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturday. Good conversations, memories and lunch are promised, but make sure you bring some scissors.
