Abundance

2015 Festa Gervasi Harvest Wagon

Each year at Festa Gervasi, our vineyard crew builds a celebratory harvest wagon. It's become something of a tradition.

Everywhere in the world grapes are grown, elaborate traditions have arisen to celebrate the harvest.

Our Canton, Ohio harvest wagon is an adaptation of Italian harvest traditions. when the last grapes from the vineyard are loaded onto a decorated wagon and hauled into the village, where blessings and celebrations ensue.

Our Festa Gervasi wagon is a celebration of our Canton, Ohio acres and the bounties they yield: everything on the wagon comes from the 55-acres of this old farm.

Festa Gervasi always an enjoyable day, and has the added benefit of helping raise funds for the United Way of Greater Stark County.

The harvest wagon begins inauspiciously, as a pile of scrap wood scavenged from the property, including a few vintage barn boards from our 1820s Ohio bank barn:

Asters, goldenrod, and other wildflowers are gathered from our meadows, a few hydrangea blossoms from our landscaped grounds.

Crabapples, pokeberries, and black walnuts come from our fence rows, along with bushels of apples and pears from our orchard.

Our actual grape harvest dates do not always coincide with our harvest festival date, but we bring in any late grapes that may still be lingering on our vines  (this year, it was a few Vignoles and a second crop of Frontenac Gris.)

In the past we purchased our pumpkins and gourds, this year we grew a few of our own, in straw bales, along the road to our South Vineyard.

And this year, our newly released Family Reserve wines, from the grapes patiently nurtured in our own vineyard, had a place of honor on the wagon:

Every year the harvest wagon is different: different flowers, fruits, and foliage will be at their peak at the end of different Septembers. Each wagon is a snapshot of a particular date in the harvest season.

Every harvest is different: some exceed our expectations, other years we may have hoped for more.

But the celebratory spirit is constant.

 (Photo courtesy of United Way of Greater Stark County)

Tending the earth in all seasons, coaxing a crop, you are acutely aware of all the things that can prevent a harvest at all.

So when harvest arrives, you take some time some time to celebrate, before the work of the next season begins.

Vineyard Assistant Holly Brown. (Photo courtesy of United Way of Greater Stark County)

So the morning before each Festa Gervasi begins, we spend a few pleasant hours building our wagon and piling it high with the fruits of our fields.

We then throw the vineyards open to our guests, and celebrate the abundance of this place, and the slow patient magic of baby grape plant to vineyard, and of grape into wine.

Vineyard Manager Brian Gregory.  (Photo courtesy of United Way of Greater Stark County)

Tradition

2014 Festa Gervasi Wagon

If you do something twice, it's a tradition, right?

And so it is with our harvest wagon.

Last year, for Festa Gervasi, our grape harvest festival, we had great fun putting together our inaugural harvest wagon.

Building on Italian grape harvest traditions, we thought it would be fun to transplant the tradition to Canton, Ohio.

Everything on the wagon comes from our acres:

Scrap lumber left from construction, wild flowers from the meadows, bedding plants from our grounds, grapes from our vineyard.

I don't think anyone would ever guess that below our inaugural wagon was our aluminum airboat trailer.

Well, for this year's wagon, we started inauspiciously with pallets.

And loaded it up!

We look forward to continuing this tradition each year.

Each harvest, like each season, has its own personality and traits. And we look forward to each wagon looking different from those that came before.

La Vendemmia, Canton-style

Our Festa Gervasi harvest wagon is a transformation of the Italian La Vendemmia tradition, when the last grapes from the vineyard are ceremoniously hauled to the village in a decorated wagon, traditionally borne by oxen. Grape stomping and festivity ensue.

Our wagon celebrates not just the bounty of the harvest, but tells the story of this place, from virgin oak forest to dairy farm to tree farm to vineyard.

Instead of a team of oxen, our Canton harvest wagon is borne by our antique McCormick Farmall, refurbished and used to till our vineyard rows.

Baskets of apples and pears from our orchard, and walnuts from our fence rows (standing in place of Tuscan olives), speak to the rural heritage of this corner of Canton, Ohio.

Colorful sweet gum and maple boughs mark the years a tree farm stood on these grounds, and are joined by asters, goldenrod, and rose hips from our meadows, which are nearing their peak of fall color.

Wooden signs represent the six varieties we have chosen to nurture to fruitful maturity in our young vineyard: Marquette, Frontenac Gris, Aromella, Arandell, Vignoles, and Petite Pearl.

An oak wine barrel from the Canton Cooperage company commemorates the virgin oak forest that once stood on this site, remnants of which can be seen in the restored oak beams of our Bistro, a renovated 1823 Ohio bank barn.

Garlands of wild grape vines from our woodlands wrap the wagon, in homage to Ohio's vineyard heritage, and the American lineage of some of the French-American hybrids we grow.

The wagon itself is made of scraps of lumber from our new Crush House, and a few boards from the old barn which housed our initial wine cellar, in celebration of vintages past and future.

Baskets of summer flowers from our meticulous grounds, recently pulled to be replaced by fall plantings, are another marker of seasonal change.

The work of the vineyard goes on through all seasons and conditions. When harvest and its vibrant colors arrive, it is more than just a pretty scene, but a celebration of life and abundance.