Yesterday was a very busy day at the winery. With our rush to get as much of our ripe fruit in as possible before the rain, we picked nearly a ton of Lightner Grenache, four tons of Fenaughty Syrah and nearly a ton of Hog Pen Syrah (our new site at Perli vineyard). And I almost forgot, a few hundred pounds of Counoise which we blended in to our Lightner Grenache.

We followed our normal plan of action. Fruit arrived Friday evening and was cooled down over night to 40°F (4°C ). Saturday morning, the core team arrived around 7. We punched down everything already in the winery, got the pump ready to rack the BBQ sauce flavored rose (more about that in another post) and set up the sorting line. First up was sorting .75 tons of Fenaughty syrah for our whole cluster fermentation. We put this in the bottom of the large tank to help minimize the roughness of punch down on the stems. The other 3.25 tons went into the tank de-stemmed. After the Fenaughty, we did the Grenache and Hog Pen Syrah into puncheons.

Because of the light in the winery, it is always hard to take a good picture. Here is the team sorting Grenache yesterday.




We had foot stomper break up the grapes yesterday. We don't use a crusher - just feet when we want a bit more broken up grapes. (On a side note, we do sterilize the feet. )




Our super stomper, Karen, talks about the challenge of foot stomping 4 tons of Syrah. (Yes, 8,000 pounds.)



We had a hugh team yesterday including many new friends! With the help of team, we were able to finish crushing before lunch. Thanks to all of you!