Truck travails and a long day, but it was time to get the grapes in the fermentors…
Grape bins ready to destem
The first up was some 114. We had about 2.8 tons to destem into two fermentors. The first grapes of 2009 were on the way:
Here they come!
After the long day we ended up with 1.25 tons of 115, 2.8 tons of 114, 1 ton of 667 and .75 tons of 777. The fruit looks great! After destemming, we got them in plastic bin fermentors, added some SO2 and then cooled the grapes down with some dry ice. The must will cold soak for a least 3 or 4 days maybe a little longer. The goal is to let the color, flavor and tannins in the grapes be absorbed into the must. All that is what will make the wine red in color and wonderful in flavor down the road.
A little dry ice makes for cool grapes...
…so the truck showed up, off we went to McMinville and everything went great, right?
Not so much.
So the truck was 3 & half hours late. So I got to wait for 3 hours. It was a pleasant place to wait…
don't see any trucks out there....
…but really, if was awful. I waited. Walked around. Checked out other parts of the vineyard. Looked down the road. Walked around some more. Ate a donut. Looked for the truck again. Called the winery to let them know I would be late. Looked for the truck.
And, finally, the truck showed up-late, but it showed. No, I won’t go into the why it was late. No, I won’t go into the trip down when the grapes almost fell off the truck or when there was a wrong turn….
At any rate, the grapes finally got to the winery. I was very late, but fortunately I brought gifts: cupcakes from Cupcake Jones (
www.cupcakejones.net). Awesome Pearl District tastiness makes up for being late…sorta..
Finally, time to get the grapes going towards wine!
Early morning sun at the vineyard
Ahhh, time to start bringing in the fruit.
The day started off well, I got out of Portland reasonably early and made it to the vineyard not long after the picking had begun in the 10 acres west where today’s grapes were coming from.
Everything was going great! It was a beautiful day and the fruit was coming in nicely! By about 11am, all the fruit had been picked.
All that was left was for the truck to show up….
Pinot Noir 115 ready to pick
More Pinot!
Had to run to the vineyard last evening to do some more samples. As expected, the sugars have taken off with the burst of heat. Good news is the color and flavors have seemed to develop as well-at least for the first blocks to be picked.
I expect we’ll our harvest will be started by the weekend!
A lovely sunset
With all the excitement of watching the 2009 vintage race towards harvest, it can be easy to lose track of the other vintage. The very exciting 2008 vintage is coming along very nicely. We recently (about a week ago) racked the wine into some neutral barrels for a few months more aging. What the heck does that mean? Well, the 2008’s had been in a mix of new & neutral barrels since finishing fermentation back in November 2008. Racking means to transfer and that’s what we did. We transferred the wine into neutral barrels. There are three reasons for this. First, it helps the wine to become clear by leaving behind the lees that had fallen to the bottom of the original barrels. Second, I was happy with the amount of new oak that had gone into the wine and wanted a more neutral mix. Third, by putting the wine back into barrels (instead of bottling) the wine can enjoy a few more months of barrel aging. I expect we will bottle the wine in December or January-and you’ll see it headed your way sometime after that!
September 16, 2009Visit!
It’s always nice to have visitors to the vineyard. My good friends Chris and Angela from MBA land came to visit for the weekend and swung by the vineyard this Sunday.
- Chris & Angela
This was their first time in a vineyard and they definitely learned some stuff (i.e. listened to their wine friend talk on & on & on about grapes & wine). I think they enjoyed themselves. Well, except for when the snake went by…
Most of the time when you hear about veraison (color change), you see red grapes in action. White grapes go through veraison as well! Above is Pinot Gris, about a week ago, starting to change from green grapes to its ripe salmon coloring. Below is what the Pinot Gris looks like once it’s through veraison:
Of course, some white grapes are shy about all this color thing. For instance, Chardonnay:
Pommard Grapes well through Veraison
So I meant to have a series of posts about veraison with some nice pictures showing the grapes changing over time. The 2009 vintage, however, decided not to indulge me- it is ready to get on towards harvest. Needless to say, the grapes went through most of veraison before I got all those nice pictures taken. These pictures are about a week old, all of the grapes should have full color by now (like the 115 below).
115 Pinot Noir in the West Block