2011...a true California Wine Chick this time!

Hello all!
I am writing you from the comfort of my new home in California!

After moving out here about 9 months ago with a goal of being closer to the action, I am eagerly anticipating the next harvest season. However, since I am not able to take off time from my new job, I won't have a permanent internship this year but will be filling in where ever I can to get more production experience. With that, I was fortunate to help out at A.P. Vin over the weekend with bottle the 2010 wines.
The bottling truck pulled in around 6am to set up.


Empty bottle cases ready for filling.


The bottling line. Bottles being fill then a Stelvin cap being screwed on.

With the help of about a dozen people almost 1800 cases were filled.
It was a great experience and I am glad I was able to help.

Now, where will I work next...stay tuned.

The time has come to say goodbye

Well, it's Friday and it's my last day at Kent Rasmussen Winery but that doesn't mean things were slow. Kent wanted me to gain some experience with filtration before I left so we used a pad filter on some Sauvignon blanc.

Wine transferring from tank through the pad filter and into the smaller tank in the back barrel room

Earlier this week we did some analysis on the wines. First we did a "spot" test. Samples were taken of each wine and a spot was added to chromatography paper then the paper was placed in a solution. As the solution passed through the wine and traveled up the page, it left darker circles. Each circle signified the presence of an acid. Tartaric acid at the bottom, Malic acid in the middle and then finally Lactic acid. The idea is to determine if the wine has completed "ML". (Changing malic acid to lactic acids.) This was a pretty basic test and wine samples will still be sent to the lab to verify but it gave us a good idea of the progress.



With the same wine samples we then did a "pill test" and check the sugar levels in each wine. A small sample of each wine was added to a test tube along with a pill. Note, if you look closely at the bottle, it says, "Reagent tablets for Urine Sugar test." Yep, it's the same thing that is used to check sugar levels for diabetics!

Then we were on to the true test...the taste test! After we drew samples of every barrel and tank to check on their progress chemically, we tasted our way through each one for our own analysis.

Note the glasses in the back of the room too! Thirty nine samples in total! We all puckered out (literally) about 60% through but it was enough to get the idea!

And, just so you don't think I spent my last week working hard in the lab and filtering wines, here are a few pictures from my day of tasting on my day off.
My visit to Mumm...
And my flight of sparkling wines. Absolutely perfect!
And, as if Kent hadn't done enough for me by providing me with his experience and guidance, not to mention the fun kayaking and bonfire outings, he treated Quinn and I to an end-of-harvest dinner at Press Restaurant in St. Helena. At dinner, Kent shared with us a nice sampling of his wines over the years which included a 2007, 1996 and his very first Pinot noir he produced in 1979. Now, I know what you're thinking, I didn't know a Pinot would age for that amount of time. Well, I am here to tell you that when a Pinot is made right, it ages just fine and this was one example. It was amazing!!!

Nice handmade label!!

I have had an amazing time working harvest at Kent Rasmussen Winery. I have gained some great experience in things I haven't been able to do in the past and am so thankful for that. Kent's knowledge and generosity is tremendous and I want to thank him and the entire KRW crew for being so welcoming. Here's to more adventures in the future.

Until then, cheers!

It rains in Napa Valley?

It sure does and it is NOT fun to work in! It is cold and rainy today and we are pressing. Not the most enjoyable working conditions but harvest must go on.

However, things are coming to an end here at KRW rather quickly. We had 5 tanks fermenting that needed to be pressed, after today we are down to 1.
Here are 3 tanks that we are working on currently. The first one, was full of Merlot and was pressed Friday. The last one, full of Petite Syrah, is being emptied today and the middle one, with Petite Syrah as well, will be drained tomorrow.




A mountain of must. (Grape skins and seeds)

Here is a video of the free-run off one of the Petite Syrah tanks.



And, here's just an update on what happened over the last few days. On Thursday Kent surprised us with another harvest tradition and took us to the beach for dinner and a bonfire. It was great! We arrived just before sunset so we could witness the beauty of the sun setting on the west coast. I've seen it before but it's still amazingly beautiful!


Kent built the bonfire and we roasted sausage and corn then made smores of course for dessert. YUM! Celia entertained us with her beautiful voice while she strummed a view tunes on her yukalaylee.



And, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get a picture of the crew for Kent Ramussen Winery for 2010.


Me, Kent and Quinn.

I only have one more week here and we'll see what's in store.

Major fun, tons of work and big changes

Sorry for the delay in adding a new post. I've been a busy girl.

Friday evening I spend at dinner with some dear friends from Healdsburg. Saturday was spend with some friends visiting from home and from San Francisco and we spent the afternoon tasting at wineries and having dinner at ad hoc...one of my favorite restaurants in the valley. On Sunday, Kent surprised us with his love of kayaking and treated me and Quinn, along with his wife, Celia, to a day on the Russian River. It was a wonderful day and even included a picnic lunch along the river, wine included of course!

As for winemaking, Monday and Tuesday were spend pressing. These are big days at wineries. All of the juice, called free run, is first drained from the tanks or bins and then the remaining skins/seeds have to be shoveled out and put in the press where the remaining juice is squeezed out. Now, I know this sounds easy but when you are dealing with TONS (literally) of grape skins/seeds that have to be shoveled it is hard work!!! And let me tell you, my arm/shoulder/back muscles are stronger today than after any class at Lifetime!

We will be pressing the next few days as we have 5 BIG tanks ready to go. I'll try and post some pictures next time. (Too busy trying to get all the work done to worry about taking pictures.)

Oh, and the biggest change of all, in case you haven't already heard, I quit my job at Invesco yesterday after 14.5 years of service. I am relocating to California to pursue this dream, sort of. I'm starting out as a business analyst at another financial institution first but then who know what the future holds!

Until next time...off to the press!

New things coming my way

There are many winemakers that don't let interns do a thing to wine because they are too worried about something going wrong...then there's Kent Rasmussen. Kent has been so great with giving us direction and then letting us go figure out the best way to get things done. Each morning when we get to work Kent has assignments for us for the day, typically it's one page with pump-overs, analysis, etc.


Here are my sheets from yesterday...note...THREE pages! I told you we were busy!


Here is my first yeast addition.

Some winemakers "go native" meaning they let nature take its course and allow fermentation to occur naturally. That is a bit risky so most winemakers add yeast to aid in the fermentation process. Note I said, "most winemakers add yeast..." Yep, Kent let me do it yesterday and as far as I can tell, that tank is fermenting along nicely!

Things are becoming a little more scheduled these days so I will be taking advantage of it and hanging out with some friends over the next few days...something I haven't done much of since I arrived 2 weeks ago.

Oh, and here are a few more pics from the property.


Here's my view first thing in the morning while doing my daily pump-overs. A little overcast first thing but just over the tanks is a vineyard owned by Joseph Phelps Winery; Cabernet on the left, Chardonnay on the right.

I found this yesterday right outside my cottage.

Yep...chestnuts! I've never seen them grow before but apparently they grow in trees in a spiny green husk. Pretty neat I think. I plan to roast them soon and will report back how they are.
:)

Busy days

Tuesday was a BIG day. We brought in the last (and probably the bulk) of the fruit for 2010 for Kent Rasmussen Winery. I don't know the final tonnage but it was somewhere around 60-70 tons! (For those of you keeping track, that roughly 120-140 bins!!!) We processed a bit of Cabernet, a lot of Petit Shirah and the remaining Pinot noir.

Cabernet grapes

Petite Sirah grapes

We started around 7:30am and finished exactly 12 hours later. We had a bit of fruit ready first thing this morning but we decided to not start until we knew when most of the fruit would arrive since we would already have the equipment running. That all happened around 11:30am.

Everyone showed up at the same time!

Yep, that's an 18-wheeler delivering petite sirah

The whole setup. Crusher, sorter, pump, bins.

Just so you know I am really here, here's a shot of me in action; manning the bin of stems, the timing of the crusher, sorter and pump and responsible for moving the pump hose to the appropriate tank. Sheesh...lots to do!

But, just because the last bit of fruit has been processed doesn't mean the work is over. Oh no...it is really just beginning. Now begins the fun tasks of more punchdowns, pump-overs and pressing.

Big Days

Friday we had what I thought was a pretty big day. We brought in roughly 30 tons of fruit. Half Pinot noir and half Merlot.
Night harvesting is a newer craze. It's great! Picking crews hit the vineyards around 2am and deliver the fruit the wineries throughout the morning so when winery works get in, your fruit is waiting for you. David said it's like Christmas. You go to bed and wake up to fruit ready to be processed. Friday morning, this is what I woke up to...



We started around 8am Friday morning and finished up around 6:30 that evening. Kent had promised us we would all be finished in time to head to "Cheers! St. Helena" that evening and, has he promised, we all made it. Kent and Celia were on pouring duty and Quinn and I were in party mode. Quinn went out on his own, doing what he called "power tasting" and I took my time and strolled through the shops. It was awesome! I have been to St. Helena so many times but have not had the chance to walk through all the shops so this was great. Local wineries were in almost every shop pouring their wines. For a "$35 donation" you could sample some of the finest wines Napa Valley has to offer while shopping at discounted prices. It was a great time and I am so glad I finally got to experience it!

I was able to take the day off on Saturday to get some real "business" taken care of but then it was back to work on Sunday. All the fruit that came in last week needed to be tended to. Some went into these open-top tanks and we have to do punch-downs 3-5 times each day. (I love it though...Kent has a pneumatic punch like I used last year. Love it!!)


The Merlot was put into a larger tank which requires pump-overs. This was the first year I have had to do a pump-over. The first 2 times I just hooked up a hose to the bottom of the tank and sprayed the juice/skins into the top of the tank. Today, however, I used an irrigation fitting that swirled the juice around like a sprinkler for even coverage. Here a video of it.




Tomorrow is the biggest day yet. We are estimating roughly 70 tons of fruit to come in. This is going to be an even bigger day than Friday. We are all heading to bed early tonight so we are well rested for the big day. More to come on that after I survive the long hours.

My "home"

As promised, pictures of my home-away-from-home.
The cottage where I am staying is about 50 yards away from the winery. The grounds are absolutely beautiful! Each day this week I have eaten lunch outside overlooking a neighboring vineyard.


The cottage.


The view from my room.



The neighbor vineyard.



The olive tree grove.


The crush pad where all the magic happens and my cottage in the background. (You can see how close I am to the action!!)

Tomorrow is going to be a LONG day. We received some fruit late today so we are holding it over until tomorrow. We are also getting fruit delivered tonight so we will have that to process tomorrow as well. THEN...tomorrow night is the last "Cheer, St. Helena" which is a local festival held on the first Friday of each month in St. Helena. Tomorrow is the last one of the season and Kent's goal is to have everything done so we can all attend. I sure hope it works because it will be one heck of a good time. If we make it, I'll definitely post some information about it.

Hit the job runnin'

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!

The Wine Chick returns

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.

Final days

My last few days at C. Donatiello were quite busy so I didn't have much time to update my site. We processed more Pinot noir and Chardonnay and we "drained and pressed" 4 tanks of Pinot and moved it to barrels. Of course, those tanks had to be cleaned!


Cleaning a tank

Over the past few years when I've talked about working at a winery during harvest time and making wine the most common question that's come up has been "So, you mean your gonna stomp grapes with your feet?" followed by a little chuckle. Countless times, I have explained that it just really isn't done that way anymore but yes, it can be done. Well, this picture is for those people!


Old-school stompin'

I spent my last night in California in San Francisco and before heading to the airport I visited the Ferry Building Farmers' Market. Now, you know how much I love fresh produce and this is an AMAZING market. The products for sale vary from the common fruits and vegetables you find in the produce section of your local market (except these are MUCH sweeter and fresher) and also include little known items like Early Girl tomatoes and lemon cucumbers. If only I weren't on my way to the airport, I would have gone broke buying stuff at this market!


The front of the Ferry Building and some of the vendors


A variety of bell peppers. (Yes...those are purple bell peppers!)

All in all it was a short but memorable trip. I had a great time in the wine country again and had some new experiences in wine production.
Thanks for following along and I'll be back next year!

filling barrels (lots of barrels!)

Just a quick update for anyone following along...I haven't fallen in a tank (but I have cleaned quite a few). I have been working the late shift this week. I head in around 8:30am and typically don't leave until 8:30PM so by the time I get home, eat dinner, and take a nice long shower, I am, quite frankly, too exhausted to post any updates on here. I will do my best to add a new post about my last few days before heading home so stay tuned!

Field trip, prepping and lots of work!

Work has picked up for us lately and the days have been getting longer so I haven't had time to post to the site in a couple days so here are some updates.

Friday I headed out on a trip to O'Neel Vineyard in Santa Rosa to pull some samples. The fruit looked good but will probably be another week before it's ready for picking.





In preparation for Saturday we had to clean barrels for the Chardonnay we were going to process.


Lining up the barrels on the barrel washer

When we arrived at work on Saturday we had just over 9 tons of Chardonnay to process (which was 20 bins of fruit.) The grapes were dropped into the hopper of the sorting table and we picked out any leaves and undesirable fruit.


Sorting the fruit

Once the fruit is sorted it is taken to the press where it goes through a 2-hour process of being squeezed dry. All the juice is then pumped to a holding tank and then transferred to the barrels we prepped on Friday where it will ferment and turn into the Chardonnay we all know and love.


Grapes getting dumped into the press.


Grapes in the press ready for squeezing.

So as we were processing our TWENTY bins of chardonnay we looked up to see another delivery...an additional 18 bins, right around 8 tons, of Chardonnay that needs to be processed as well. The good thing was, we already had to sorting table and press running so we just needed to keep the process flowing with this additional delivery.



Needless to say it was a long day. I arrived at 6:30am and headed home close to 7:30pm. (I was fortunate to leave earlier than some of the others that arrived later that morning...I was beat!)
Here's a shot of the 3 interns, Arnold, Emily and me, exhausted at the end of our long day.



I am heading back to work at 10am this morning and have a day off tomorrow. (What to do??)
I am not sure what is in store for me today but with a "midnight punch" in store, it is bound to be another long day!

My first "C. Don" fruit

First of all...I was recently told that I am "definitely a local" when I referred to C. Donatiello as "C. Don".

So a quick update on my recent days at "C. Don".
I have been in at 6:30am to open the winery with Andres and Luis to do the first-of-the-day punchdowns, of which there are 4 daily. Andres and I typically tend to that task while Luis focuses on preparing for the days activities. Now let me just say...I LOVE the hydraulic punchdown tool!! Last year everything was performed manually when we had to do punchdowns, which was fine, but this is so fun! (Insert Tim the Tool Man's chuckle here.)


Hydraulic punch


Me...in action!

Each day we are given an actual Work Order sheet with the tasks for the day (and yes, we have to sign-off on each task when it's completed.) There have been so many things going on that I have completely not realized it until someone mentioned it's done.

I worked in the lab on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Hmmm...who'd have though my Chemistry lab would actually pay off?)


Doing analysis on vineyard samples.

The lab is not my favorite part of the job but at least I am getting some exposure to it.

As for today, we processed roughly 4 tons of Pinot noir.


Pinot noir grapes being delivered.

The fruit is picked then transferred to the winery in 1/2 ton bins. When we are ready to process the fruit, it is dumped onto a sorting table and we pick out any "undesirables" such as "raisined" berries, botrytis or waterberry.


Pinot noir at the sorting table.



Sorting the Pinot


Robert, me and Jessica sorting the fruit

This Pinot will be processed with about 25% "whole cluster" meaning the entire cluster, stems and all, are kept in the tank. This tends to add a complexity to the wine and is a technique used by many winemakers.

After sorting through approximately 25% of the fruit we then processed the remainder through the crusher-destemmer, thus removing the stems.


The clusters are dropped from the sorting table down into the "crusher/destemmer" and then the grapes (or berries) are sorted again.


Robert sorting the berries.

Once all the fruit is processed it is dumped into a tank in the winery for us to tend to for about 7-10 days. (Yep...more for me to punchdown!!)

We are expected to have a busy weekend with more and more fruit coming in. I am, however, managing to have some fun after work and have been visiting some of our favorite tasting rooms and restaurants in Healdsburg. The weather has been quite hot (good for the grapes) and is expected to reach 100 in the next few day. But, there is no humidity so in my book, this still remains one of my favorite places.