Big day!

First of all, for anyone that thinks I am too "girlie" to work in a winery...think again. This is what I look like after we sorted and crushed about 7 tons of fruit yesterday. The tape was from the picking bins that were used to designate the type of clone within each one. As we worked our way through the bins, each was cleaned and the tape label removed. (The quickest place to put it was on me!) You'll also notice all the splatter marks on me and my shirt..grape juice! This also explains why most people bring a change of clothes with them to work whenever crushing or pressing is occurring.

On Monday, our day started around 8am with the usual...punch-downs, running numbers...etc. However, it wasn't a usual day. We had fruit coming and for A.P. Vin, it was a lot.


Prior to the fruit delivery, this is what the winery looked like...we had 5 bins in fermentation and 7 bins in cold-soak. (Recently pressed and not yet in the fermentation stage.)

We were set to receive 2 separate shipments of fruit; the first arrived around 1pm. The second delivery was a bit more of a challenge and I got to experience another joy of harvest for a winemaker...shipping. The truck driver couldn't find our winery. Despite Andrew's patience in trying to providing the non-fluent English speaking truck driver directions it was no use. Next thing I hear is Andrew yelling for me from across the winery and asking me to jump in the car and go get the truck. Now, I have become some what familiar with our area of San Francisco but I am not an expert. I did know, however, the main street that the truck was supposed to be on so I set off, cell phone in hand (and work boot still on too) to find the shipping truck. I drove to the location where I thought he should be and didn't see him. After a few relay-calls between Andrew, me, and the truck driver I finally spotted an 18-wheeler pulled over with his hazard lights on. I pulled up beside the truck and honked my horn to get his attention. I said, "Are you looking for A. P. Vin?" He simply shrugged his shoulders as if to suggest he had no idea what I was saying. I said, "do you have grapes?" He understood that and responded, "Si". So I said, '"Ok, follow me." (Frankly at that point I didn't care if they were for us or not!)
We made it back to the winery around 2:30pm and after a bit of a delay we started crushing the bins around 4:30pm...we were in for a late night.


In total, we received around 7 tons of fruit, 15 full bins. We worked our way through all of them and around 1:30am we finished up the night by cleaning up the winery and heading home.


After all that work...we ended up with 5 bins in fermentations, ready for pressing on and 17 bins in cold-soak. With more fruit on the way at the end of this week and the last bit next week, this is the harvest I've heard so much about.

Today, Wednesday, was just as busy. We started at 7:30am with pressing the fruit from the Keefer Ranch Vineyard. We had 5 bins to go through so we wasted no time getting started. We collected the free-run juice first and put it right into barrels. From there we ran the remaining must through the press to extract all the juice and added that to a tank to settle over night. Tomorrow we will "barrel-down", transferring the juice to barrel as well. When all was said and done, we had 6 barrels of wine today and more to be filled tomorrow.

And finally, the day ended again with cleaning. (Did I mention we clean a lot?) Since I may not be around for the next pressing I was designated as the press-cleaner for today. It is a lot of work as there are many little nooks and crannies for grape juice, skins, and/or seeds to hide. And, as I mentioned before, if you aren't soaked by the time you finish cleaning the press, the press just isn't clean. Well, let me just say, I was drenched!!


First things first..cleaning out the pummace from the inside.


Hello from the inside!

I am going down in history as the best darn press-cleaning intern ever!! Andrew bet me that I would miss at least 5 spots when he came back to inspect my work. I told him I would take that bet but do him one better..."I will miss less than 2!" He completely doubted me. I worked on that damn thing for over an hour and a half and was completely soaked by the time I asked Andrew to review my work. He found one spot I missed and it was "just a little spot." Yep...I'd say I won that bet and challenge anyone to do it their first time any better!!