It's grape harvest season at the Ten Spoon Vineyard and Winery in Missoula, which is the largest commercial winery that uses its own grapes in Montana.
Every fall, owners Andy Sponseller and Connie Poten host a Community Grape Harvest, where they enlist volunteers to head out into the vineyards with scissors or clippers to help haul in the fruit in exchange for a nice picnic lunch and beverages. It's pretty relaxing work, dropping grapes in a bucket, and there's no time requirement.
They've got almost 8 acres in production. Right now, they're harvesting the St. Pepin, which will make a white wine.
"They're such good grapes," Sponseller said, cutting a bunch off a vine. "It's easily all-around the best grape I have in the vineyard. It's very, very disease-resistant, it's late-flowering a