The Weekend

The weekend began where the week left off... A long Saturday. We started off thinking it might be a slightly shorter day, but when the fruit failed to arrive early and only 6 of the 3o expected macro bins showed up at 9:30 we knew we were in for a long day and it turned into another nearly 12 hour day. Apparently only 1 crew was picking at this vineyard which was about 40 minutes away. As a result the last of our 10 tons only came in around 2:45 so the day stretched on.

After starting the morning with some grueling punch downs and then helping with the new incoming fruit, I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of the day working with the harvest enologist preparing yeasts for inoculations and some tartaric acid additions. This was great learning experience. Of course the day had to end with some more fun punch downs! Especially fun when you are at the 10+ hour mark and dead tired from a long long week.

Fortunately Sunday brings no new fruit and I only have to put in about 2 hours in the morning taking care of some punch downs.

Another double digit day in terms of hours worked and it was supposed to be an easy day as we only had 5 tons of fruit coming in. But there was plenty of other items to keep us busy including the twice daily punch downs, inoculation of 3 tanks with yeast and adding tartaric acid. Plus today we barreled down our first wine. You can note from the pics that the tank that had settled for 24 hours is placed on the elevator and the barrels are "gravity fed". It takes about 7 minutes to fill each barrel (approx 6o gals per barrel). We ended up with 13 barrels filled, so it takes some time. Tough to do near the end of the day when you are tired and your patience is running thin!

No rest for the weary as we get 10 tons in on Saturday morning. "Fortunately" since they won't be picked overnight we only have to be in a 7am.

15 Tons and What Do You Get

Today was a mega long day starting bright and early at 6am and finally getting over at 7:20pm - PHEW! As mentioned yesterday we got in 15 tons of grapes. I was in charge of forking the macro bins and getting them weighed. While the others finished up the 15 tons I assisted the winemaker in getting the tank from the 17th ready to press. It was hoisted back up on the lift. The remaining juice was drained into the press basket (see pic) and the manway door was opened and the hard must was shoveled out in the press basket. The press basket was then brought to the press and the press was done - the first pic shows the setup. After all was done the 5 tons of grapes generated about 84o gallons of wine. We even had our first taste of the harvest - a very good start. The day ended with a long, long clean up of the crush area, the press area and the tank we pressed from. What a day!

The next 10 Tons

Today we whipped thru another 10 tons of grapes - this is becoming old hat and I am becoming a better and better forklift driver! Today marked the completion of initial fermentation of our first 5 ton batch of grapes - remember them back on Sept 17th? Before leaving tonight we moved the tank onto the lift and let the lift do it's magic raising the tank up to the heavens - ok so only up about 4 feet (see first pic). A hose was attached and run to another tank (see pic 2). When the valve was opened the juice ran to the second tank. This was left to drain overnight and is known as the free run juice - a better quality juice. Tomorrow we will take the remaining mass of grapes from tank 1 and press out the excess juice. I will be especially curious to see how much free run juice is in tank # 2 in the morning.

Tomorrow will be a long long day (although today's 11 hour shift was long as well - thank god for OT!) We have the press plus our punch downs - now with 6 tanks to work our muscles, and we will have a whopping 15 tons of grapes awaiting us at 6am.

10 more Tons

The morning started with a punch down of the tank we had inoculated a week a go.e It looks like we might be pressing that on Thursday as the fermentation is nearly complete. Around 9am the first of what turned out to be 10 tons of grapes arrived. With additional sorters sent down from Chardonnay and with improved methods we whipped right thru them. Unfortunately near the end I ended up cutting my pinkie finger on a sharp edge on the sorter table which, at my bosses insistence, brought a quick trip to an ER. No stitches were needed, just some new fangled glue and I should be good to go. I even got an updated tetanus shot as a souvenir of my visit. Even with the brief respite it still was a long 10 hour day.

Tomorrow we start bright and early at 6am as the grapes will be there early! 10 more tons will be awaiting us.

10 Tons of Grapes Are A Lot of Work!

Well today was the day. 10 tons of pinot grapes arrived. What does that look like, Well, the first pic shows the truck where about 8.5 of the tons came on. That's a lot of grapes, believe me. So the grapes got weighed in the macro bins (see pic 2)and then cluster weights were also taken. Then to the sorting table and into the destemmer.

This turned into a long day starting at 7am. First off I had to do a punch down on the fermenting tank from the 17th. Then we had to ready ourselves for the grapes by rinsing a few tanks and the sorting line. The grapes showed up around 10am and after a day at the sorting table, driving the forklift, cleaning emptied macro bins, and finally the dreaded clean-up of the crush pad (which really sucks after a long day!) we were out of there at 7pm - so a nice 12 hour day. Initially it looked like it might be a lot longer as we were trying to do all this with basically 5 people. Fortunately they saw our struggles (and the potential enormous OT bill) and sent down 3 sorters from the Chardonnay facility and the speed picked up big time.

Tomorrow we do it all over again as 10 more tons are scheduled to come. Am I having fun yet!

Day Off

Today I had a rare day off. We are awaiting 10 tons of grapes on Monday. I decided to go and do some sight seeing. I went to Sugarloaf Ridge State Park near Santa Rosa. I stopped at the gate house and asked the park attendant what there was to do. She said mainly hiking and I should take the 2.7 mile hike to the top of Bald Mountain. With it being 92 degrees she said to take plenty of water. I asked if the park had any animals that could kill me like bears. She said no bears, but they did have rattle snakes. Ok that's a lot better! So the entire hike was filled with me hearing things rustling by the path. On one occasion I swear I heard a rattler in front of me to the side. So what to do. I could chicken out and go back, no instead I decide to run full speed by the area in question. Phew!

When I got to the top (approximate time was 1 hour) it was gorgeous. You could see 50 plus miles in each direction. I could see San Francisco Bay to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the West, the town of Napa to the Southeast and much more. It was amazing In the first pic you can see Santa Rosa in foreground and the Pacific Ocean is the bright strip in the middle (Unfortunately the sun was this way so the pic doesn't do the view justice). The second picture is of a lizard - there were tons of these all around the path. Fortunately I made it safely back to my truck avoiding the rattlers. Although the climb down was harder than expected as it was so steep my calves and shins were burning as you had to really grip with your legs.

Well just another day in paradise. We shall see what the weekend will bring before the onslaught of grapes. The temps are to be close to 100 for the next half week at least.