I had been in touch with Kathleen Inman of Inman Family Wines prior to coming out to California. She gave me a call over this past weekend to see if I might be able to head up to Sonoma Valley to help her with a Chardonnay project she was working on. "Sure, why not?" I though. (Thanks goes to Andrew for letting me get away from A.P. Vin for the day!!)
Kathleen and her husband Simon welcomed me into there home to stay with them on Monday night because we had a early start on Tuesday.
The day began at 6am as we drove to the vineyard to assist in the picking of the Chardonnay grapes. The lot was small so it didn't take long to pick before we headed back to the winery for pressing.
Chardonnay vineyard
Me, at work collecting grapes
Once at the winery, the grapes were weighed then loaded into the press.
Chardonnay grapes
Grapes being dropped into hopper of the press
From the hopper the grapes were dropped into the cylinder then pressed so the juice was extracted into the tray below.
Pressed juice
From the tray the juice was pumped through hoses into a tank to ferment and become the Chardonnay that we all know and love.
The pump and hoses
YUM!!! Fresh pressed Chardonnay juice
We finished up the day around 2:30 so I headed to Healdsburg to tool around and do some wine tasting. I visited J, Armida, and Everett Ridge. All were great in their own way. And, I got the best perk ever...an industry discount on my wine purchase!!! As if getting up and going to work in a winery everyday isn't enough to remind me I am really doing this, a get an discount on purchases at other wineries to boot!
We are hoping to get more fruit in at A. P. Vin early next week so until then, its going to be a bit of the same...punch downs, must analysis, and cleaning, and I'm loving every bit of it!
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