Once the grapes are harvested, they are rushed to the winemaking facility. Once picked, higher quality wineries choose to sort again to remove rotted, un-ripened or over-ripened clusters. Matter other than grapes, such as leaves, bugs and stems are also discarded at this time. The French refer to this as triage. Whole bunches of grapes are placed on a table or a slowly moving conveyor belt so that substandard grapes can be plucked off and thrown away. For most wines, clusters that are unevenly ripe, under ripe, or have suffered disease damage are rejected. This practice has increased significantly, especially in Bordeaux and is done by trained professionals with no mechanization.
