Harvest Week 3, Sept 10-Sept 16

Above is what a Pinot Noir cluster looks like. They are tight, pine cone shaped bunches.

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, we had slightly less than 2 tons of Las Brisas Pinot Noir, Swan clone. This year has been a strange year for us, in that all of the clones that are blended into the wine are ripening on different dates and are coming in at different times. The Swan clone is one of my favorites from the Las Brisas Vineyard. The clusters were cool, tasted great and we found no mold. The brix were at 26. Peter Brehm brought the grapes to us around 11am and we were finished at 2pm. We were starving and quickly darted off to Luka's taproom for a big lunch with some Belgian beer.

Wednesday was my 34th birthday so I was glad to not have grapes! Martha, our intern, took me out for lunch at Pappo in Alameda and made me a Princess cake (Swedish tradition).
Thursday, Sept. 13, we had anticipated 12 tons of grapes at noon from Morelli Lane vineyard. I emailed 15 of our volunteers to round up some help. The grapes ended up coming in at 10:30am and there were slightly less than 8 tons. The clones that make up this wine are: 113, 115, and pommard. We processed them all together and the average brix was 25.5.
We had about 5 volunteers show up to help sort through the Morelli Lane grapes. It was great to have the extra help, even though we got started earlier than expected and it was less grapes than we thought. We had the weekend off from grapes! We still are waiting for the remaining Saralee's Pinot Noir, remaining Las Brisas Pinot Noir and Viognier grapes should be ready soon too. Keep checking in, we aren't even half way through.