This past Sunday we arrived in the pre-dawn hours for our first crop of the season: 6 tons of Pinot Noir grapes from Carneros. Within the Carneros AVA, these grapes were harvested from two vineyards: Poseidon and Beckstoffer. They were in excellent condition and the sweet aromas made us feel like a part of each vineyard came with them! As a matter of fact, if you closed your eyes on this quiet Sunday morning and felt the warm, bright sun shining on the pallets loaded high with moist grapes, you might have thought you were in the middle of a vineyard.
This delivery was more than just grapes, however. It included our new 5-ton press: we call it the Beast. It will allow us to dramatically increase the amount of grapes we can press in one day. Pressing is actually one of the most time consuming and labor intensive procedures. With our old press, which was quite a bit smaller and not programmable, it would take much longer to press a tank than to fill it with the crush. Below you will find our gallery of photos from the day.
-
- Jared and Bill unload grape bins from the tractor trailer
-
- Early morning sun makes for dramatic lighting
-
- David lifting a pallet of grape bins
-
- David inspecting the crop
-
- Pulling the five ton press within reach of the forklift
-
- Success! David secures the new press with the forklift
-
- David making sure everything is ok
-
- Into the parking lot she goes . . .
-
- Ripe Pinot Noir from Carneros about to be crushed
-
- One last taste before starting the sorting table
-
- And the crush is ON!
-
- Sorting grapes: fun for the whole family!
-
- The Joy of Sorting
-
- It’s raining grapes!
-
- Filling one of our stainless fermenters
-
- After the crush, it’s out to the back lot for swelling barrels and painting the base of the new press
-
- David applying primer to the base of the press
-
- Once-used french oak barrels from Opus One being swelled
-
- Yankee cleaning and swelling barrels
hi
that’s a good post.Thank you for sharing.