September 27, 2009

• From “grubby” to “sticky”......crushing 600 lbs of Syrah grapes

  Participation of the crushing and destemming of about 600 lbs of Syrah grapes has given me a new appreciation for the word “ sticky” and a little more practical knowledge of the wine making process.

   

  The harvesting season for grapes in the Napa valley can range from mid-August to early November, dependent on such variables as type of grape, elevation of the vineyard, and weather in the past summer. Sizes of the vineyards range from large conglomerates to small family businesses. The one of our visit, is an experimental vineyard located in the Oakville area of Napa Valley, one of two, 20 acre plots, owned by UCDavis, on donated land and primarily for research. UCDavis has a Department of Viticulture and Enology and the whole area of Davis endless other courses and competitions from the budding wine maker to seasoned experienced ones. From what I can observe …a time consuming passion and involvement.

    The first stage of the process last weekend, was hauling out all of last years equipment to hose down and move. Included were the square carrying bins,  both plastic and steel barrels, and the red painted CRUSHER - DESTEMMER with loading hopper, paddle feed crusher, and destemmer shaft and attached electric motor about 120 lbs. Thank goodness for hot dry California weather!

  Thanks goodness for hot dry weather!

  Our trek for the first batch of grapes of the season (later ones for Cabernet Sauvignon, merlot and Pinot Nior will be after my departure) began Saturday morning with a wake up call at4: 30 AM and hitting the road at 4:47 AM. Awake not much but had my coffee. Totally dark with arrival at 6:01 AM, we waited in the half-ton rented truck. I remember seeing Venus the morning star in the east as light gradually made the horizon clearer with sunrise at 6:30 AM. We had observed artificial lights of pickers in another field. The aim is to pick the grapes in the cool of the early morning and our arrival assured a first place in line. The actual process proceeded very quickly with the arrival of the vineyard manger and the crew of primarily Mexican pickers and their crew boss. Very efficiently lines of both pickers and men in the back of the truck worked to calls of “ Quarto, quarto “ indicating the picking of four rows. Each container of about 10 lbs. was passed from hand to hand and emptied in less than about 20 minutes. The truck was driven to the opposite ends of these rows to facilitate easier loading and emptying.

   

  There was the opportunity to take some shots of not only the Syrah grapes,  but new vines here with Florida fertilizer and other green grapes, which no doubt is an experimental type. I am told that the color of the wine does not necessarily depend on the color of the grape but how long the skin remains in contact with the grape before pressing.

  This what I found out about Syrah (aka. Shiraz, Hermitage, Marsanne Noir) 

  "The heat-loving Syrah grape variety has adapted well to both the warm venues of California, Southern Oregon and Washington, as well as to a revival in interest of robust and heavy red wines. This ancient varietal is native to the northern Rhône, where it produces the very long-lived, tannic and spicy red wines of AOCs Côte Rôtie, Hermitage, and Cornas. Syrah owes it dramatic 20th century rise in prominence to its incredible popularity and success in Australian vineyards, where it assumes the name Shiraz. The Australian versions tend to be much more intensely fruit driven with less hard-edged angularity in youth, despite possessing significant amounts of tannin and characteristic peppery spiciness."
  

   

  We were back in Davis by 830 AM, but the return trip afforded some more good photo opps….including the view of the Bay area here and wonderful shots of hot air balloonists …will do a separate blog entry on this.

   

  A stop at the weigh scale indicated 620 lbs of grapes had been loaded.

  The next part of the process is where my usual “grubby” became “sticky”!

  As my friends do not have any cold storage for the grapes the grapes had to be unloaded, crushed and destemming as quickly as possible, about a 2 hour job. I do not know how efficient I was at this task but with fork in tow, my task was to put into the white plastic barrel which was then loaded into the red hopper….soon discovered 2 and a half of these buckets made a full batch.

   

  • 1:55 pm
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