Last Call

More than 9 weeks after that first truck load of Pinot Noir slowly trudged its way up our long driveway to the winery, the last bins of Cabernet Sauvignon arrived today.
Faced with the threat of rain this week and days that grow ever shorter, it was unlikely the remaining grapes would benefit much from leaving them on the vine any longer.

 

Considering all the scrambling that's been going on around here over the last 66 days--whether it was trying to find tank space for the 2163 tons of grapes we received or a spot in the cave for all the barrels--the end of the harvest has been almost anti-climatic.

Although we've crushed the last grapes, there's still more than a month's worth of work to do whether it's filling barrels, filtering the fermented juice, cleaning out tanks or even doing some bottling. But the work load is such that we're planning to go back to our regular work week, which is probably great relief for the crew that's been holding down the graveyard shift.