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My phone lights up the darkened hotel room. The message is a mix of numbers, letters and symbols � coordinates for where I am to be in the middle of the night.

I paste the line of text into my phone’s map app and await my directions, a 20 minute drive along an eight-mile route through the Arizona backcountry.

It is 4 a.m. and the temperature outside is in the upper sixties.

I drop my room key in the early checkout slot at the Iron Horse Inn. There is not another soul on the downtown streets of Cottonwood, Arizona. It is the dead of night across the Verde Valley.

As I navigate my SUV onto Main Street my phone recites directions to the vineyard where I have been called to labor.

I am a temporary worker on a harvest crew, or as the French would say, a vendangeur � a grape picker. And this is “La Vendange� � the moment the winemaker believes the grapes have achieved a perfect balance and ripeness.

Determining this exact moment is a blend of artistry, nature, instinct and chemistry. It’s all over my head.

I’m told winemakers constantly test grape sugar levels. They monitor their changing colors, depending on the varietal, awaiting transformation from green to either purple-red or translucent gold. They note their size as they grow bigger. They feel them to detect a softening. They even administer their own taste test, seeking the perfect balance between acidity and sugar.

All this information determines a grape’s readiness � and even this differs by region, from one winemaker to the next and from one grape variety to another. But the goal is the same � optimum ripeness for the desired wine and style.

In the lead up to La Vendange, the winery assembles harvest teams for this labor-intensive work. It has become common for vineyards to harvest in the cool of night not only for the consideration of laborers, but for the grapes, too. Nighttime picks make sure freshly harvested grapes do not bake in the hot sun, or start the fermenting process while waiting for transport to the winery.

For the past week the Malvasia Bianca grape, which we have been summoned to pick, have been swelling towards maturity. All the year’s perils � insects, wind, rain, drought, freezes and extraordinary heat � are preamble to this night.

I traverse dirt roads, ford a shallow creek, and bump down a rocky path. My app tells me I’m close. The last hundred yards, the road becomes a one-lane trail.

“You have arrived at your destination.�

Dos Padres Vineyard.

I park, gather my supplies, and join the others under a corrugated metal canopy to hear instructions for this grape and this field. Although this is my first wine harvest � it’s not my first harvest, having worked wheat, corn, cantaloupe and chile harvests in the past.

Among the dozen or so of us, there’s an unmistakable buzz of excitement. Anticipation for the coming vintage has built for weeks. Unlike me, a last-minute addition who has traveled a hundred miles to be here, most live down the road, or in nearby towns.

We pair off and get to work. The race is on to bring-in these grapes at their peak ripeness as the harvest is officially underway.

At the head of each row are numbered posts. My partner and I are assigned to row six. We stand on each side of the vine, in the six-foot space between rows. The line of vines stretches several hundred feet uphill in a north-south orientation. I slowly feel my way through the vine’s leaves, searching for clusters of grapes � my only guiding light coming from a small headlamp.

I make my way down row six, operating as much by feel as by sight. I discard my work gloves, making it easier to feel where a cluster’s stem, its rachis, connects to the main shoot. I snip the stem near this connecting point and gently toss the cluster into the crate beneath the vine.

We work in silence. Clusters of grapes are hard to spot amongst all the leaves in the dark, and conversation distracts from the task. Any small talk is strictly business.

“This bunch is easier from your side.�

“Can you slide the crate closer to the middle?�

“There is a bunch on the ground to your left.�

“Does this look good to you?�

After nearly an hour we reach the end of row six and start anew on row 13. The horizon is brightening. Talk turns to the grape as our conversation is no longer limited to the mechanics of picking.

“Do you know much about this grape?�

“It’s from Italy. It thrives in hot, dry climates. Taste one.�

“I like it.�

I learn this grape will be blended with several other grape varieties, and bottled by Page Springs Cellars as Vino del Barrio-Blanca � a tasty white wine. This vintage could be available before next year’s harvest.

So goes the conversation as we complete another row.

In the early light, I notice the clusters at the end of the row, where the exposure to the sun is the greatest, are smaller and some are overripe. Clusters farther down the line are bigger and juicier � virtually perfect.

Before we start the next row, we walk back down the line inspecting the vines from a different angle to find any clusters that may have been overlooked.

We are two hours into the pick. My hands are sticky from grape juice. I splash some water to try and clean them before we start again.

My partner removes his hat and wipes the sweat from his brow. Till now, all I had seen of him were his dark sneakers and white leggings beneath the vine in the light of my headlamp. He’s a young 50, with a full head of red hair.

As we begin again, I ask his name.

“They call me Chef Brian.�

“Are you a Chef.�

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“What restaurant?�

“I have owned several, Page Springs Restaurant, even had a food truck at one time.�

There was something familiar about him.

“Brian, are you from Prescott?�

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“Are your parents Michael and Cindy?�

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Michael and Cindy were my neighbors more than 40 years ago. Cindy, who has since passed, had a son named Brian. I had seen Michael but once in the past 30 years, and at that time he updated me on his stepson, telling me Brian was a chef in the Verde Valley.

“Brian, I lived across the street from you and your folks back in the early 1980s.�

We traded stories as we worked. He was a pre-teen; I was the local weekly newspaper editor. I published a photo of him on the cover of my newspaper for a story about the little community of Jerome. Michael, his stepfather, sculpted religious figures and I was his model for a sculpture he did of Saul being struck blind on the road to Damascus. It stands outside a St. Paul Catholic Church in north Phoenix to this day.

At the end of the row, we embrace and have our photo snapped together.

It is nearly 9am, and it is 82 degrees. We get back to work on row 23. There are 57 rows in this section of Malvasia Bianca grapes, 34 more to go.

Through September, vendangeurs will continue to labor day-and-night picking Syrah, Gracian and Roussanne grapes that grow on the hills of Dos Padres Vineyard. Soon, the vines here will go dormant. Leaves will fall and shoots will change from green to brown. But the work doesn’t end � there’s a lot more to come before this year’s vintage makes it into barrels, bottles, and eventually glasses.