Barreled down

Barreled down is winery speak for having all of your fermented wine pressed and put into barrel. We did this on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Before pressing, we clean the barrels, which really is where all of the work is. They must be scrubbed, rinsed, sulphured, ozoned, rinsed again, and drained. Each barrel weighs about 100 pounds, and they sit on racks of two, and everything gets moved, lifted, and racked by hand. We pressed 32 barrels of wine, and I prepped 14 on Tuesday and 18 on Wednesday. I'm glad that's over with.

Before pressing, we stick what amounts to a large stainless steel straw (like you drink a soda from at McDonald's) into the fermenter and suck the "free run" wine out and pump it into the barrels. The pump does all of the work, all we do is move the hoses around. The pressing process itself is fairly simple - dump the fermenter into the press with the forklift/bin dumper, and let the press do its thing. The tough part is preparing all of the barrels.

All of the estate Pinot Noir is now done, and about two-thirds of the vineyard is picked out. We still have to do Chardonnay, but making white wine is is much simpler and easier than making red, so it's all downhill from here.

I'm now in San Francisco looking for a place, eating, and drinking heavily. I like it here, a lot. The only thing that is not to like are the rents - which are very high. Still, I think it's the place for me, at least for now.

Cheers!

"I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it." - Rodney Dangerfield

Mucho trabajo

That's Spanish for "lots of work", which sums up the past couple of weeks. A typical day begins at 5:30 AM, with punchdowns at the winery. It's a solid hour of physical work, and good exercise too. I will be glad when we press the Pinot Noir (later this week) as pressing means the end of punchdowns. After I return from the winery, I usually join the harvest crew until the pick is done, which can be as early as 8:00 AM or as late as noon. If we do a pick for the "estate" wine we return to the winery to crush the fruit and do the afternoon punchdown. If the pick is for one of the other producers the early afternoon is free and I head to the winery in the late afternoon for the punchdown. Fortunately, the winery staff has been doing the evening punchdown so my day is usually done by 5:00 PM.

It is very interesting how the wine industry runs on Mexican labor for almost all of the harvest/farm labor and perhaps half of the winery labor, and most Mexicans don't drink wine at all. Most of them probably think we (Whiteys) are idiots for spending so much time, energy, and money on fermented grape juice.

The Mexican workers listen to a funky form of music called "bomba" which sounds like a crazy polka, in Spanish. The two radio stations most listened to are "La Preciosa" and "La Buena", and it seems like they are always on in both the vineyard and the winery. It is pretty cool stuff, and really sets the mood. California wine is dependent on Mexican labor, and we need to salute them!

It looks like we will be pressing the Pinot Noir in less than a week, as well as harvesting and pressing the Chardonnay. Chardonnay is pressed immediately after harvest and ferments in barrel, so there are no punchdowns. This means that we will have a day or two of barrel preparation in the early part of the upcoming week, and after pressing (Thursday???) I will be basically done here. There is a lot of fruit still hanging in the vineyard, but the picks will accelerate over the next week and it will disappear quickly.

It's been fun, and there is still a bit more to do, but the finish line is now in sight.