Inevitably, August came, and the grapes continued to hang. They were spectacularly beautiful, full to bursting, as if with just the slightest tap they could explode. The Fiestas were past ready, the sugar was high, too high for table grapes, but apparently they were using anything to make wine these days. Bunches at the top of the vines had started to shrivel. They’d get picked any day, Dad said. When to pick grapes is not a choice the farmer makes. The buyer decides when to pick, and then the buyer buys by weight. This is why people hate selling to Mello, and why they hated selling to Uncle Felix. Mello and Uncle Felix paid in full upon delivery, while smaller producers paid on highly variable and often unreliable payment schedules. But both Felix and Mello had reputations for letting grapes hang until the juice was overly sweet and the fruit weighed slightly less. Or they would find rot where there had been no rot and pay less than what they’d contracted to pay. Sometimes, last minute, they wouldn’t buy the fruit at all.
