Harvest into high gear!

First off, I hope that you enjoyed the last blog post by my friend Pinot Noir (if you haven't read it, check out blog post from Sept, 23rd).  It took a lot of convincing!! Anyways, back to the harvest.

Today was my first day at what harvest might look like once its really cranking.  It was a tough day and I was told you "ain't seen nothing yet."  I started the day by punching down a couple Pinot tanks that did not have the automatic punch down machine..... so it was time to put some muscle into it!  I punched down those two bad boys for about 20 minutes and my back, shoulders, and legs where screaming.  I thought I was in good shaped! After that we set up the equipment to receive white grapes, yup, finally harvesting some whites.  Instead of being destemmed and sorted, white wines, in this case sauvignon blanc, are dumped straight into the grape conveyor and straight into a press which is a large cylinder looking thing, grapes are pressed slightly then got straight into stainless steal tanks where it will age and become wine.  

The only reason red wine is red is because the skins are fermented with the grapes in primary fermentation.  Next, we pumped the primary fermentation of Pinot out and into stainless steel tanks, after the free run juice is sucked out you climb into the tank and shovel all the rest of the Pinot grapes which will be pressed to extract more juice.  All while doing this you have to be paying attention to what is happening with the sauvignon blanc grapes making sure they are going in and the juice is flowing out of the press into the tanks.

After all of the harvesting was done.... it was time to clean everything we got dirty.  The most challenging thing I did today was climb into the press, and spray it down with hot water.  It turned into a sauna in no time, seriously, it was just like a full blown sauna in there.  I was soaking wet by the time I was out of that thing.  However, I did notice that my skin was nicely exfoliated and moisturized... hahaha.... new business idea!  Have tourists clean the inside of press in order to exfoliate and learn a little something about wine making, all while charging them.... hahaha.  I presented it to Tom (owner) and he said no, hahaha.

Once everything was cleaned, we left, I grabbed dinner and some beer!  BEER you ask?? yes, I was in the mood for a refreshing pilsner.  I was at the store looking at a bottle of something called Pliny the Elder thinking Pliny maybe meant pilsner or something, then the guy at the store walked by me and said buy it!  Its soooo good.  I said, is it a pilsner, no its hoppy like an IPA he said, I said refreshing though, he said yes, best beer I ever had.  Cool thing is that its brewed in Santa Rosa and the brewer will not sell you the beer unless you say that it will remain cold from their dock to your store.  I know this is a wine blog, dedicated to all things wine however, however, this beer is worth a quick little review.  For me, most hoppy IPAs taste like fermented flowers, they are just too much.  This thing is so balanced it has huge hops but goes down so smooth with a little fruity after taste, maybe apricot or something.  Anyways, its super good!!  (Russian River Brewing Co.)

Tomorrow should be the longest day of harvest, Pinot, Pinot, and lots of Pinot!!!  I've been working none stop since last Wednesday!  Whoo!  Over and out!  

Yummmmmm!