Harvest has begun!

Before getting into the blog post and the excitement of harvest.  I want to tee it up a little, I want to let you know exactly what I am doing right now while writing this.  I feel it totally appropriate after a long day of harvesting and making wine.  I am sitting in Healdsburg, CA listening to Queens of the Stone Age (QotSA) and enjoying a 2006 Peterson Zinfandel (Peterson Winery) which is nothing short of amazing for 20 or so bucks!  Chewy, raspberry jammy spice, vanilla, nice!  When popping the bottle you will  be pleased with what is said on the cork, "No Soul-less Wines."  I don't think I have to go into what that means in these times! 

I'm on to the harvest....
First of all the harvest is running, on average, about 4 weeks behind normal due primarily to a cooler summer so there has been a lot of waiting. This is what my drive into work looked like on the first day of harvest, it was odd, and calming.  I immediately thought of Led Zeppelin's Misty Mountain Hop and had it on my Ipod in my car, so I rocked to that all the way to work it was sweet! 

And the fog ruled the mornin

I waited for about a week and a half for this day and it was a long long wait as I wanted to get this harvest going so bad.  We started off getting the a two Pinot Noir blocks in.  What does the harvest involve you ask?  Let me tell you, one intern stands on top of a stack of skids and as the grape bins are brought in via forklift you simply rake the grapes out of the bin into the conveyor for sorting (it reminded me of PLINKO from Price is Right) while harvest intern 2 sorts the grapes.  What is sorting you ask?  Basically, making sure no grapes of inferior quality make it into the wine, sun burnt, under-ripe, and also picking out leaves, plastic string and anything that doesn't belong.  We also grab samples from the sump in order to get the Brix (Brix Wiki) readings which is measuring the sugar content in the grape which is extremely important. 

These grapes are nothing like I have ever tasted which should be expected given that the wines are so amazing.  When I was sorting I couldn't help but to just munch on these babies the whole time I was sorting.  As you can imagine my favorite job is the sorter vs. raking preciously because I can eat the grapes!  haha.  The interesting thing about this is that when we went to a different vineyard or clone you could actually taste the difference in the grape eg) one sweeter, one a little more tart etc.  Unbelievable! Day 1 was complete, my stomach full of grapes, and my body sore, I went home satisfied in a hard days work.

I was standing on the skids in front of you, the sorting stand in on other side

Thursday we had off as none of the other vineyards were ready of picking so we ended up meeting at the winery to go out in the vineyard and check stuff out.  We were able to see all the different vineyards sites and the differences between the vines and grapes from different sites.  Truly amazing!  To see what I mean, check out this link which is a map of the vineyard with the different clones and plantings (Rochioli Vineyard Map).

I was back at work on Friday while we harvested more grapes, only working till about 1pm.  The weekend we have off as we are waiting to pick the other vineyards.   

Making Wine!!!

With that, as I continue to enjoy my Zin, and as the vines continue to ripen, I hope to have more soon!  Enjoy the weekend!