First Crush, Saturday Septmeber 1, 2007

We thought we would be in the clear and have the Labor Day weekend off, but we found out Friday that 2 tons of grapes were being picked that evening and would be brought down Saturday morning at 8 a.m. This past week had been particularly busy at Lost Canyon. Wednesday and Thursday we filtered the four wines in preparation for bottling on Friday. We had an early start on Friday, 6:30 a.m., with the mobile bottling truck.




Thankfully, all went well and we finished at 2pm bottling 1700 cases (our biggest batch yet)!!!! This was done with the help of about 20 fabulous volunteers.


So, Saturday, we were slightly zombies, but the delivery of grapes was a small amount and was on time. These grapes were Pinot Noir, clone 37 from Saralee Kunde's vineyard and they were in great condition. This will be the first time for us working with this particular clone. At a tasting event hosted by Saralee Kunde's vineyard early in the year Jack and I noticed this clone really had a dark color for Pinot Noir and since the year before we had lots of light color for our Pinot Noirs we negotiated to include clone 37 in our Saralee Pinot Noir.


The engineers next to Lost Canyon Winery built us a custom dumper/sorter for the grapes. In previous years, this part of the crush had always always been back breaking. It would take about 5 people to sort through the grapes (picking out moldy clusters, leaves, stems and bugs) and to shovel the grapes from one container to the other. Now, the machine takes care of the lifting and pouring, allowing us to focus more closely on the important part: selecting the perfect grapes! We are still looking for a good name for the machine. I was thinking about Bertha.


We had to do extra cleaning on the crusher, since it was the first time we used it in a year. Our harvest intern, Martha Gustaffson, was quick at work in doing this job. The whole process went pretty smoothly and we were done by noon. The punchdowns have begun -- no rest for us winemakers. We do 3 manual punchdowns a day from here on out.

Today (Monday), I will do the afternoon punchdown and add the starter culture (Jack prepared this at the early punchdown) to the fermentation bins for the evening punchdown. Everyone helps out for the punchdown: Jack, Randy, Bob, Martha and myself. More grapes to come this week....please check back in for updates.