YAKIMA —When it’s harvest time, Yakima Valley vineyards will see activity ranging from crews hand-picking grapes to general managers operating forklifts and processing machines. And everything in between.

Samantha Mallery, the recently hired winemaker at Hyatt Vineyards near Zillah, exemplified this recently as she examined blocks of Muscat grapes ready for harvest, showed visitors through the winery’s processing facility and unclogged a de-stemming machine.

“I never do the same thing two days in a row,” Mallery said. “One day I might be marketing in Seattle, and the next day I’m literally climbing in a hole two inches deep in grapes and digging out a pump.”

While statewide production of wine grapes is expected to be down a bit from the 150,000 tons harvested last fall, winegrowers are

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