08-26-05 - Harvest!

Yes, if you can believe it, harvest has begun. But NOT on those grapes we've been watching the past few months. Nope - those have a ways to go... What we have here are a few small vats of Sauvignon Blanc that comes from a tiny vineyard in St. Helena. Inasmuch, the processing of these grapes is a tad different than those Cabernet grapes that we'll be processing in the next few weeks.

I didn't even know it was happening. I looked out and saw the truck arrive with its tell-tale yellow vats, brimming with sweet, juicy fruit - the yellow jackets already beginning to hover, waiting for their nectarous reward. You can see there isn't that much. It only took our crew a few hours to pick these as the vats arrived for crushing shortly before lunchtime.

For those learning about wine, a bit of explanation is needed on what we are seeing... Most red wine comes from grapes that have red skin and white meat interior. There are a few grape varietals that are entirely red but those are rare and rather obscure. Nay, the Merlots and Cabs and Pinots that we all love so much has white juice inside them and the way it turns red is to soak the juice with the skins for a period of time. The red color comes from the skins. A white wine, on the other hand, is white through-and-through and in as such, when the grapes are picked, there is nothing about the skins that is needed or wanted, so the grapes are immediately crushed for their juice. That is what we are seeing here - in a bladder press which looks remarkably like those presses used hundreds of years ago. Inside this unit is a tall, vertically-placed thick-walled rubber balloon. After the grapes are placed in the press, the bladder is slowly filled with water, forcing the grapes outward, gently pressing the juice out, dripping into the red bucket.

The grapes are pressed in small lots and in between each pressing, the remnant skins are shoveled out and kept for a second, harder pressing. The resulting juice will have yeast added to it, placed in a stainless steel tank (although I should check on that -- some Sauvignon Blancs see a bit of neutral oak and I'm not sure if this will or not), and left to ferment for a while.

Of course the real reason you check in every week is to see our lovely vines of Cabernet. Verasion on Vine 2 is coming along with only a few berries left that haven't turned purple. I love looking at them during this time of the year - it is that point when the plant is at its most transformative and oddly transcendental. If time weren't my enemy, I would have come out every day to photograph the same cluster to show its evolution.

Vine 1, in contrast, has significantly more color on its grapes, but it is still not a hundred percent complete in its verasion. They are a rich, blueberry hue with an occasional green grape still holding on.