Fireside Winery seeking volunteers to help pick grapes

  Fireside Winery is a small, family owned business, but come September, a big job awaits its workers, so they're asking for some help.

The Marengo winery, which will have 10 acres of grapes ready to be picked next month, is seeking local groups interested in a unique fundraising outing.

Fireside will pay volunteer groups of 10 or more $150 per ton of grapes picked. Marketing manager Cassie Bott says that a single day's work in the fields, which would last from 7 a.m. to noon, could earn a group $300 or $400 toward the nonprofit or charity of their choice.

This is the second harvest for the winery, which opened in 2007. Last year, Fireside hired a professional crew, but with a grape crop expected to be double in size this season, the owners decided to call on some local help.

"We had always heard that other wineries would get people to sign up for free just for the experience, but we don't mind paying somebody, so we thought maybe we could encourage people to come out by giving money to their charity," said Bott, who is the daughter of Fireside owners Bill and Rona Wyant and the wife of winemaker Zach Bott.

The family began turning part of their farm into a vineyard in 2005, and with grapevines taking about three years to mature, half of the crop was ready last year and their first full harvest waits this year.

About 20 groups have signed up so far, and with an estimated 96,000 pounds of grapes to be picked, there is room for more. Church groups, animal shelter workers, library volunteers, FFA clubs and cheerleaders are among the people who have signed on so far, Cassie Bott said.

Groups will begin at 7 a.m. and work in the fields until noon, when lunch will be served. Grape picking is an easy but time-intensive process, Bott said.

"It's kind of like pruning," Bott said. "You clip off the clusters, put them in five-gallon buckets. Once that bucket is full, we put it into a macro bin, and from there, somebody else takes it."

Groups that sign up will be contacted about a week before they're needed because the different varieties of grapes ripen between Aug. 24 and Sept. 30. Participants must be at least 13 years old.

"It's fun for the people who come out and do it," Bott said.