Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Crush 2009 photos

Hey ya'll check out these pics from the Crush! Video coming soon.

M

CRUSH2009

CRUSH 2009!

So it was 24 hours ago that some of my closet friends and family arrived at Vintners Own in Houston to sort grapes. I was worried about the grapes because of the rain that decided to show up 1 week prior to harvest, but all in all it wasn't too bad (the vineyard should have done a better job dropping fruit). We had 8 people on the sorting table, the more eyes and hands the better, and everyone did a superb job of culling any berries or clusters that showed rot. I spent the 1st half under the de-stemmer pulling debris that made it through - need to keep a clean tank! I switched out the other half and sorted on the line, props to those that were on the line the whole time, that'll kill your back. It took about 2 hours to process what turned out to be around 2 tons of grapes to get a really beautiful ton for fermenting. Look thru the pics and you can see just how much work is going into this barrel!

For the detail minded - these grapes basically underwent a cold-soak on their trip from Napa to Houston via reefer truck at roughly 40^F. They arrived Tuesday around 2pm and we sorted at 8pm. The fermentation is roughly 90% whole berry and 10% crushed in an open top tank. Brix was down at harvest because of the rain so alcohol will be lower in the end - which is fine with me - it shouldn't be the main feature. I will post updates on the ferment status and what we are doing along the way.

I'm very proud of my crew and got some great props from the owner and his son (wine-maker). We were tedious and choosy in our grape selection, if I didn't know better I would have said the grapes were double sorted - the final product was clean and beautiful. Now the science begins... Stay tuned.

Cheers, M
pics and videos posted soon.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Almost time for Crush

Well It's been awhile since I last posted - had to go back to my day job and earn a living. Well as my last post said 14 days it has obviously been longer than that. The current news is that it will be the end of October. The grapes are hanging a bit longer this year and a heavy rain this week will slow things down. It shouldn't hurt the thicker skinned Cab, but I'm a bit nervous about fungus and berry rot. If you click on the link, NapaVintners ,you can read the overview of this years harvest notes - 2009 looks to be a stellar year. Well that's all for now - I will start posting daily when crush starts.

Salud, M