Hello from St. Helena in the heart of Napa Valley!
The word on the streets around here is that this is a "funny" harvest. It is almost October and fruit is just now beginning to be picked, a good 2-3 weeks on average later than normal. With a very mild summer which included some rain and foggy days, the grapes in the vineyard just didn't see enough sun to provide good ripening. Because of that, I will be a busy girl for at least the next two weeks because that is when all the fruit is being picked for Kent Rasmussen Winery (KRW for short.)
I arrived Sunday afternoon to my home-away-from-home and began work on Monday. It wasn't an extremely busy day; I just got the tour of the winery, learned the flow of the day-to-day operation and met the staff and crew. OH...I even got fork-lift training. I must say, I was a bit worried about it because I have heard some major horror stories of what people have ruined with a fork-lift. I am happy to report, however, that I feel pretty comfortable on that thing and actually enjoy it!
Everyone here is extremely nice and we were even treated to a wonderful dinner by Kent and his wife Celia at their lovely home which is on the property. It was so nice to hang out and get to know everyone. What a great way to kick off a new harvest!
So today, Tuesday, we got in our next round of fruit (first round for me). We received approximately 8 tons of Pinot noir for the KRW label. I worked with Kent and his daughter who was here helping out and we ran the fruit through the crusher/destemmer in no time flat!
KRW Pinot
Once the fruit was processed we had to clean. If you've been following along over the past 2 years, you'll remember that working in a winery requires you to spend about 30% of your time tending to the fruit/wine and 70% of your time cleaning. That was definitely true today.
Last week before I arrived, KRW received their first fruit. Today, after processing the pinot, that wine was ready for the press.
Oh...and guess who got to clean the press??? Yep...me.
Tomorrow we get more fruit and the estimate is around 20 tons. That's about FORTY bins of fruit! I must say it will be the most fruit received from any 3-person crush crew that I have been a part of. Kent tells me it "should be easy." We'll see.
Next time I promise to post some pictures of this lovely property. I am truly blessed to be staying here and to be given this opportunity. Until next time. Cheers!
Welcome back friends and family to my harvest intern adventures.
I am about to embark on year 3 of my duties as a harvest intern.
I am moving locations again, heading to the heart of it all...Napa Valley! I'll be working at Kent Rasmussen Winery in St. Helena. Kent makes a variety of wines under 3 different labels including Pinot noir, Cabernet, Chardonnay, Petite Sirah and Merlot. I have sampled wines under the Ramsay label (had to do my "homework" ya know!!) but haven't tried the wines under the flagship Kent Rasmussen Winery label or the Esoterica label...that, I am sure, will come soon enough. The Rasmay wines were wonderful. Well balanced and quite enjoyable and a great value to boot. I'd run out and buy some if I were you!
I will be staying on the winery property in St. Helena at the Rasmussen guest house. The crew will be small and will include Kent, me, Quinn (an intern from Australia) and a few others that will be introduced to you, and me, later.
I have really enjoyed my past two harvest experiences making great friends and gained a lot of knowledge of the wine making process. I can't wait to see what's in store for me this time around.
Thanks for following along and I'll send updates from Napa soon.
