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STOKESDALE -- Wine grape harvest has its rhythms of life. Like when a grower asks you at 10:20 a.m.: "Ready for a beer yet?"

I demur: "Um, no, I'm good."

Not so good. I'm sweating buckets over a bucket of grapes -- and it's early yet.

But it's getting late for Joshua Garrison tending to his Merlot patch at Middleton Vineyards just across the line in Rockingham County. It's mid-September, and although the skies are clear of Hurricane Ike, rains have swelled and burst some red grapes.

And that makes a ripe target for bees and yellow jackets.

The vineyard is buzzing, thick with potential stings and juice. Here I learn about winged things: Don heavy gloves and the bees -- tiny ones, fat ones, fuzzy ones, buzzy ones -- are gentle souls with a sharing spirit.

Yellow jackets? Not so much.

Which is why, by 11:15 a.m., I'm reaching for a Bud Light, telling myself: It's 5 o' clock somewhere.

On family land once home to loblolly timber, Garrison and family have cut, cleared, plowed, raked, leveled, limed, fescue-seeded, augured holes, sunk posts and run guide wire. Then they planted, trained and pruned two acres of Viognier and Merlot vines.

An acre or two never sounds like much. Until harvest.

Garrison's Viognier has long since been picked for Chinqua-Penn's wine label in Reidsville. This Merlot crop is headed for Westbend Vineyards, one of North Carolina's oldest wineries in Lewisville.

I consider Westbend's owner Lillian Kroustalis and winemaker Mark Terry friends, which has me sweating buckets because I want them pleased with this Merlot.

But when I hit a patch cloudy with yellow jackets, I pinch back shears, pull my bucket away and say: "This Bud's for you."

I join other volunteers sweating in the shade, suds in hand. Garrison joins us.

"We're on strike. We want more pay," I say.

Garrison can only smile: "Me too."

Grape harvest's rhythms of life always bring this payoff: A communal lunch for family and friends who've come to glean its bounty. Equally important is a blessing for God's hand on the vineyard.

Some might tell you that grape growing in sticky Dixie is a little like playing blackjack -- and not peeking at your hole card. Garrison -- among North Carolina's new breed of grower -- stands resolute and jokes to the faithful in the fields: "Pay is pretty low, but sleep tonight is good."

As harvesters slip away, stained, stung and stinky, Garrison thanks volunteers with affection. Then he says: "Just pay me whatever you think you owe me. I take checks."

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Over lunch, Claire Allan, a New Zealand winemaker, hears my tale of Merlot picking. She asks: "What's a yellow jacket?"

We compare notes on bothersome bugs (New Zealand doesn't have many), on clay (New Zealand's is a light, blowsy soil, different from Dixie's gluey muck), on our two different worlds turned upside down.

Years back, on her first visit to the Triad, Allan asked her hosts about the dollop of Southern culture on the plate before her: What's a grit?

To this day, Allan can't get grits out of her mind.

On this day, Allan has returned to the South to showcase wines from her Huia Vineyards, at the northern tip of South Island, the famed Marlborough region. We taste through a 2002 Brut sparkler, a 2007 Pinot Gris, a 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, a 2007 Gewurztraminer and a 2006 Pinot Noir.

Allan, in intoxicating accent, speaks of sustainable farming and her commitment to a clean, green, 24,000-case operation. Huia wines -- $20 and above -- hit high-end retail and restaurants in the Triad.

Each is a textbook example of grapes from a cooler climate, influenced by maritime conditions and nearby rivers. I remark how New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc reminds me of grapefruit. As the grandson of a Florida grapefruit grower, I mean it as a compliment.

Allan says she hopes to mitigate that experience by limiting crop yields. So, maybe, I think, she doesn't take my observation as much of a compliment.

New Zealand is renown for Sauvignon Blanc, a style unlike any in the world. Huia's is crisp, balanced, a little floral, a little lemon-lime and a little melon ball.

What I'm not getting is gooseberry -- the most common descriptor of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. My research reveals that gooseberry -- a popular wine term -- is a wild berry indigenous to the British Isles, Scotland, Norway and parts of southwestern Asia.

I've not visited there, so the gooseberry has me at a disadvantage.

Allan, too, has me at a disadvantage.

When I say her sparkler reminds me of the yeasty aroma thrown by my home bread maker, she conjures the more specific "brioche."

I might have added, "has a chewy bite like a slow-cooked grit" and meant it as a compliment.

Allan, I suspect, might not have taken it as such.

Given the top-shelf quality of Huia's Sauvignon Blanc, I do know this: Allan sure knows grits from gooseberries.

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Ed Williams is director of public information at Alamance Community College. If you have news of a wine event, send e-mail to williamsonwine@aol.com.