Havest week Oct. 22-28, Almost done!

Tuesday, we barreled all of the Trenton Station Syrah. This took up about 30 barrels! Wednesday, we started our last press for Stage Gulch Syrah. We had 13 bins and usually we do about 3-4 bins into the press before we run it. Today we pushed it and loaded in 5 bins for 1 press so we could do it all in only 3 stages instead of 4. It all fit and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We were eating lunch when the press was running so we could keep an eye on it. All went well. The press finished and we emptied out the dried skins and stems and got set up to do the 2nd out of 3 presses. I started to hear this beeping noise like an alarm clock. We looked around to see what it was and it was coming from the forklift. It was an error message saying BRUSHES. We shut it on and off and it was still beeping. Randy called the service station and they said we had to stop using it immediately or we would cause permanent damage. They thought they could get a service representative out either today or tomorrow. We were so close to being done! We waited for a bit to see if the service person would be there in a timely manner and fix the forklift so we could continue, but he arrived at 2pm and fixed the forklift until about 4pm. Needless to say, we had to clean up and continue the next day to finish the press. Next week, we just need to barrel the Stage Gulch and it will be all quiet in the winery. The babies will be in their barrels!