Harvest time photos!

Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature

if it be well used; exclaim no more against it.
William Shakespeare - Othello

I was, happily, able to get some really good photos of some of the harvest activities - and without further bordeaux, here they are!

Because the actual harvesting happens by hand, way out in the vineyard, and I have to stay close to the tasting room in order to help customers and get projects done, I was not able to get pictures of the grapes actually being cut from the vines. My pictures start from the moment the grapes arrive at the fermenting barn.

The farm truck brings the bins full of grapes
from the field to the fermenting barn

Sauvignon blanc grapes - the first to
be harvested each season!

The forklift takes the pallet of bins off the truck...

... and carries them over to the de-stemming machine.
(It's the one with the wheels on it just behind the
wooden pallets in this shot.)

The bins are then unloaded from the forklift...

...and the grapes are dumped in
through the top of the chute.



The fruit travels down the conveyor belt,



and ends up piled in a huge stainless steel vat,
waiting below.



The grapes, still sun-warmed from the fields,
begin to foam up.

On the other side of the machine, the stems shoot
out and form a large messy pile...

...which is then scooped into a waiting plastic bin.

Some grapes escape the machine in the
process, but it leaves the swarms of
yellow jackets something to eat!

The de-stemmed grapes are then loaded into
the press, and the juice is immediately
poured into a bucket, and then pumped via
hose...

...into the large stainless steel vats
in which the wine will ferment.

The grape skins and the stems are ground up
and used as compost for the vines.

A tradition I was pleasantly surprised by
is the "harvest luncheon", which is cooked by
Daniel and enjoyed by all the field hands and
employees!

Pasta with meat sauce and fresh basil,
hand-grated cheese and toasted garlic bread - YUM!

After lunch, it's back to work again.
This time, it's a load of pinot noir grapes.
Our vineyard does not grow pinot noir - these
grapes were purchased from a nearby farm
by our winemaker, who is starting his own label.
We will be selling his wine alongside our
estate-grown wines in the tasting room.

The grapes get hand-sorted as they traverse the
conveyor belt off the de-stemming machine, as
small stem pieces and leaves sometimes make
their way through.

Pinot noir grapes taking the plunge...

...into a huge plastic vat, from whence the skins and juice,
called "must", will be transferred into the oak barrels
in which it will ferment. Our white wines are all
fermented in stainless steel to keep them crisp and fruity.
Red wines have the strength to stand up to the dusky flavors
that our French oak barrels lend.

Last but not least, the plastic bins must all be
hosed down and re-stacked for another day
of harvesting! This was my chore, and
I can tell you that grape juice makes
a marvelous organic hairspray... if you
don't mind clouds of yellow jackets and
fruit flies around your head, that is!