Juggling Act

Harvest is always a juggling act. If you get a steady flow of fruit from the vineyards, life is easy. However, rarely are things so predictable.

I've written about the initial rush, then the lull. The pace began to pick up as September turned a bit more seasonal. Now we are at a point where everything has slowed to a snail's pace. Harvest started with the promise of becoming one of the quickest on record. It's ending as the harvest that refuses

to offer us any closure. As of today, we still have about 300 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon waiting to be picked.

 

Meantime, the fruit in the tank seems to be taking a cue from the fruit on the vine. Fermentations are very slow and the readings we take periodically show the temperatures actually dropping rather than increasing (as the grapes ferment, they generally give off heat). From a wine-making perspective, a slow fermentation can improve the quality of the finished wine, allowing for better flavor development.

 

From a practical perspective, however, that just means we are running out of places to put the new fruit arriving at the winery almost daily.

Some much-needed relief did arrive last week in the form of 3 16,000 gallon stainless steel tanks. They are now the largest at the winery, holding the equivalent of about 6,700 cases of wine. The tanks were temporarily installed at the end of our parking lot and will eventually be moved outside the new cave we are building. Although we are initially planning to use them strictly as holding tanks, they certainly are making crush just a little easier right now.