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.

First Grapes Inoculated

The first batch of grapes we took in this past Friday got inoculated with yeast and have started the fermentation process. Before adding the yeast the grapes were taken off of their cold chill and the temp was brought up so the fermentation temp will be about 55 to 60 degrees. In about 10 to 12 days the primary fermentation will be complete.

In the mean time we are still waiting on warmer, sunny weather for the grapes to finish ripening. It sounds like 10 tons of grapes are scheduled for Monday of next week - way behind schedule. From all indications though once they start coming in it will be a FAST harvest with an inundation of grapes!

No Ripe Grapes

Unfortunately California has had a very cold summer so the grapes are not ripening like they should. As a result we will not be getting in any more grapes for a few days - hopefully at least by the end of the week. Til then it is more cleaning - FUN! On the upside we did do punch downs on the tank of grapes we had from Friday. See the right pic - that is Luis punching down the cap to keep it covered in juices. This allows more extraction of color, tannins and flavors. We punch down twice a day. The grapes are finishing up their cold soak and this tank should be ready for an inoculation of yeast to start the fermentation process tomorrow.

The Grapes Arrive

Finally we hit the first day of harvest. A light day by their standards as first macro bins of what would end up being 5 tons of fruit arrived at 8am. The bins are immediately weighed and then it is onto the sorting table area where they are dumped and slowly work their way to the sorting table where stems, bad looking grapes, leaves and more are removed. The grapes leave the table and go up an incline conveyor to the destemmer where the stems are removed and they drop into an awaiting 1,500 gallon fermentation tank. The tank is chilled to 28 degrees to keep the fruit fresh and from beginning fermenting on their own. The tank was brought into the tank room and will stay chilled for 4 days while the grapes undergo a cold soak to extract more color and flavor. On the 4th day the tank will be inoculated with yeast and fermentation will start.

After a few conveyor belt issues we got the fruit sorted and in the tank by 2pm then the 2 hour cleanup of the area began. Phew, what a day. Unfortunately with the cool summer California has had the grapes are slow in ripening. As a result it will probably be mid next week before the next load comes in. So that means another weekend to relax and catch some sights and catch the Husker Game! Go Big Red!