The Noisy Stage of Winemaking
Squash, Bang, Vroom, Click, Swoosh, Ping! The noises of harvest are loud, many and constant around here. From the moment the grapes come in and Sherrie or Jamie, the dynamic enologist duo, tests them for sugar content, we hear the sounds of hard work and wine making. Check out Jamie looking cool with her shades on using the, as Sherrie calls it, stabber to suck grapes out of the bins. It works just like putting your finger on the top of a straw to suck up soda, but instead of spitting it at your siblings they are creating a diverse sample from each bin to get a more accurate read.
After taking the initial °Brix the grapes are gently unloaded into an auger. White grapes head straight to the press and the red grapes are put through the de-stemmer. Below is a picture of Max, demonstrating with ease, how to unload the grapes from the bin into the auger using a giant hydraulic crane. He is unloading the Blind Faith Vineyard Syrah that just came in today. It has great color and aromas of dark berries and plums.
Next we see Bill and Chris manning the de-stemmer and apparently having a great time doing it. Here in this giant mysterious spinning cylinder, grapes are thrown to the side through small holes while the leaves and stems are caught and sent out the other end. At the bottom of the de-stemmer Chuy and Ken strategize about how they are going to get all this work done and keep their hair from falling completely out. Tom then takes into account sugar content, acidity, varietal and many other factors as he chooses a tank for the red grapes. The must will ferment with the skins in order to absorb that rich red color we all love and crave and the tannins that give us the drying sensation on our tongues I find addicting.
White grapes enjoy a different fate, heading to a bladder press directly from the bins where they are robbed of all remaining juice. The press inflates the bladder inside, squeezing every last drop of liquid out of the grapes into a hopper underneath. The juice then sifts through a series of filters at the bottom and once again Tom sends them to a tank for fermentation. In order to empty the dry stems and skins out, however, someone has to climb in the press, scoop them out by hand and rinse it down from inside. Someone call Mike Rowe because it’s a dirty job, and below Max, Wes, Pat and Malek are doing a dam good job proving it. The whole press cycle takes about 4 hours to complete, but the end result is well worth the wait and the work.
For a brief update on grapes we received more Sauvignon Blanc this week as well as Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon from our Blind Faith Vineyard. Tom was most excited about the Blind Faith Syrah for its rich dark color, perfect sugar content and high acidity likely to follow in the grand footsteps of past Blind Faith Syrah Reserve Vintages.
As the process continues so will I, but not till next week.
Bye for now and thanks for reading,
Erik
