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Yountville, CA

Temperature: 68°F
Humidity: 49.1%
Wind: S at 15 mph
Clouds: Clear Skies
Sunrise: 6:02 am GMT-8
Sunset: 8:10 pm GMT-8
Updated: 1:54 pm GMT-8

May 2008
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Archive for the 'Harvest Report' Category

I Wish I Could Bottle it!

September 10, 2007 in Harvest Report. 0 Comments

Man, it smells good around here! And, well it should. If you check our harvest calendar, you can see why. It’s been non-stop since harvest started on August 24. The sweet aroma of all that fermenting juice, happily bubbling away, is positively addictive. The Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Cab, Viognier and Merlot have all conspired together to form an ambrosial and heady symphony of fragrance as you walk through our very hosey crush pad. There’s absolutely nothing like it!

But, I guess it wouldn’t be harvest without some kind of calamity. Last year, it was the recalcitrant crusher-stemmer, slacking on the job. This year’s top war story (so far) can be credited to a higher power: PG&E! Just as things were humming along nicely with the Viognier crush last week the power went out in most of Yountville for several hours and everything grinds to a halt. !*%#%#!!! I’m glad I wasn’t there to hear the actual dialogue!

Not much to do... the power was out

So, you eat some lunch, thinking the power will be back any minute. Nada. You make some phone calls to try to find out when the power will be back. No help there. Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, came to the realization that there was nothing to do but store the grapes in the cool cellar and wait for the power to come back. I suppose they could have tried a little old-fashioned foot stomping in place of the modern press but, hygiene aside, it’s a tad-bit inefficient. It would probably take much longer to stomp 6 tons - not to mention the sticky mess (pressing whites is a whole different game than pressing reds - yuk!) - than it would to just pray for power and pick up where you left off. So, he and the crew took a powder, then did what most cellar workers spend most of their time doing - cleaning - and prayed. Crushing and pressing by moonlight may sound romantic or perhaps even vaguely Biodynamic, but it’s a major pain in the tuckus on a day that started before sunrise. Power resumed, as did the very welcome whirring sound of the crusher-stemmer, around seven o’clock.

Grape crusher and destemmer

Even discounting the above, it’s been crush-and-a-half, so far. After bragging about our lovely, mild temperatures in my last entry, the last days of August and first days of September were just a wee-bit warm - thus, the onslaught. For a small operation like ours, this is a fairly frantic pace, crushing nearly every day. The white days are the longest with a quick crush followed by a long press cycle and a quick crush followed by a long press cycle… There’s no way to speed it up. You just have to down a lot of energy drinks and hang in there. Reds go quicker, with the crushed grapes going straight to the tank from the crusher-stemmer.

So, the bad news is that it’s been exhausting and we’re low on tank-space and the good news is the gorgeous perfume wafting out of those tanks. It’s cooled down beautifully over the last several days and Geoff’s really glad to see that the grape sugars have actually gone down a bit (rehydration), which will buy him some breathing space and, more importantly, extend the hangtime in those vineyards.

Checking Tank Space

As he was wrapping up pressing the Chardonnay last night he somehow managed to look bushed and energized simultaneously. He’d been sampling the tanks, as he does every day, and is loving what he smells and tastes. “Great color. Great flavor intensity. Nice balance. This is looking like a really good crush.” He’s a man of few words, but I think that gets it pretty well.

Pumping wine

Let the Crush Begin!

August 27, 2007 in Harvest Report. 0 Comments

Wow! It’s here! It’s early! We just crushed our first grapes of the year, 9 tons of Chenin Blanc! The Sauvignon Blanc is right on its heels, probably coming in, in the next couple of days.

Sauvignon Blanc Grapes

Early is beautiful, as long as the grapes get adequate “hangtime“, and after such a mild summer there’s little concern in that regard. In fact, if this gorgeous Chenin Blanc is any kind of bellwether, we’ll be seeing beautifully ripe flavors without accumulating too much sugar.

Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, was in his element sorting through the grapes with his indispensable assistant, Rosario, watching like a hawk as the grapes went into the crusher-stemmer and tasting the juice out of the press.

Rosario watching hopper

It was fresh press juice all around for our group on the Estate Winegrowing Tour. From year to year I always forget how amazingly sweet it is - major sugar rush! - and these grapes were only 22.8% sugar! Just wait until the Cab rolls in at around 25%! Soooooo good…

Chenin Blanc juice from press

Our group had just been out in the Cabernet checking the sugar - it’s hovering at just over 20%, so it’s going to be awhile. After veraison (the color change) is complete, we can figure that the sugar will go up 1-2 tenths of a percent a day depending on the weather.

visitors to Goosecross check Brix

And, the weather continues to be spectacular - just ridiculously pleasant. I doubt if it broke 80 degrees yesterday and today looks like a duplicate. As Geoff said earlier, in conditions like these the greatest risk is human error. If the mild conditions persist we’re going to have one killer vintage on our hands valley wide.

An early start can lead to an early finish and besides a greater chance of avoiding the rain, there’s an added benefit most of us don’t think about unless there’s a winemaker in our lives. Much better chance that he/she can actually sit down and enjoy Thanksgiving dinner a few months from now, rather than jump up in the middle and leave to go do a pump over!

It always seems that once those first few tons come in, it’s non stop. But there’s something about that first box. I’ve been through more harvests than I care to admit, but when those first pretty little clusters arrive it still makes my heart race and brings tears to my eyes. Kind of embarrassing in front of the guests…

Anyway, if you want to check up on our progress, just go to our Harvest Calendar to see what’s going on. As Geoff always says, here’s hoping Mother Nature smiles on us!

That was the crush that was!

November 10, 2006 in Harvest Report, Vintage Update and Wine Education. 0 Comments

If you’ve been checking our Harvest Calendar, you know that we’ve wrapped up the 2006 harvest by pressing the last of the Estate Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot October 20.

Our Winemaker (my business partner - Geoff Gorsuch), comments “It was a rapid-fire harvest and we’re all tired, but quality looks great. Crop yields were way down from last year, the berries were small and loaded with flavor and we’ve got intense, deep color in the reds. The very mild weather we’ve had this month and last was great for hang-time and allowed for plenty of flavor development without too much sugar. Overall balance looks terrific. We’re thankful to be able to say that it looks like an excellent vintage for us.” Amen to that! It must be quite a feeling when that last grape is crushed. No more worrying about the weather, the sugar, grape maturity… It’s all safely “in the barn” as they say, and this after a year that presented us with floods, late bud-break, a prolonged heat-wave in July and low humidity and high winds in September that whipped up the Yountville fire. Sounds awful, but when you take a step back and look at the growing season as a whole, we had quite a cool growing season overall, almost no rain, even ripening. And we’re mighty grateful!

Some memorable moments from our crush:

The tiniest, most exquisite Cabernet you’ve ever seen came down from Howell Mountain the first week of crush - way early, but gorgeous! You oughta see the color on that wine!
This wasn’t terribly amusing at the time, but the day our crusher-stemmer broke down (see our entry titled “Just Another Day at the Office”) in the middle of crushing the Estate Cab reminded us of how great it is to have good neighbors and that sometimes the weather actually does what you want. If the darn thing had to break down, it picked the right day and the grapes waited patiently on a very cool day rather than cooking in the sun while we fixed it.
Work-addled Erin, Geoff’s worthy assistant, got up at 2:00am, convinced that she’d left a pump running after the last pump-over and drove to the winery in the middle of the night to check it. It was off. All was well. Except sleep-deprived Erin, of course…
Geoff had just spoken to the crew about the importance of not taking a restroom break when grapes have been fed into the crusher-stemmer after realizing someone, believe it or not, had begun to walk away for that purpose. Normally the reason to hover over the hopper is to watch for excess leaves or dried grapes, kind of a final sorting. But in the very next load, by following his advice, they caught a wrench just about to go into the crusher stemmer and wreak havoc. Saved us from another break-down! That wrench was taped to the side of the hopper, as a reminder, for the rest of harvest.

There’s still plenty to do, and the sweet aromas of fermenting Chardonnay and Cabernet linger enticingly. Harvest Photo Three
Harvest Photo Four

Now that we’re finished pressing, Geoff can look forward to getting his life back on a more normal schedule as he gets the new wines moved into barrels. The Chardonnay will probably need about 6 months in oak, so you can look forward to seeing it next summer. The reds will take anywhere from 14 to 24 months and during that time Geoff will taste and re-taste to narrow down the almost endless blending possibilities. For instance, he has 4 separate lots of Cabernet from our 10-acre estate vineyard that represent different clones, rootstock hybrids and spacing and consequently have slightly different flavor profiles. Plus he has estate Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot to consider too (he calls the Petite Verdot a “blending Goddess”). Will it all boil down to an Estate Cabernet? Our first Estate Meritage? We’ll keep you posted…

Harvest Photo One
Harvest Photo Two

Just Another Day at the Office

September 28, 2006 in Harvest Report. 0 Comments

Prelude: No matter how carefully you plan, sometimes things just get messed up (there’s life in a nutshell for you). And, sometimes having to fall back and punt turns out to be serendipitous anyway…

11:00 AM: So, I go down to snap some photos for our Harvest Calendar and things have come to a standstill. Geoff, our Winemaker, and Erin, worthy new assistant, are pulling stems and grapes out of the crusher-stemmer because the thing has stopped working. Oh, my… The good news is that 5 out of 7 tons are already crushed. The bad news is the 4 boxes of uncrushed grapes sitting there waiting their turn. Geoff tries to fix it. Erin tries to fix it. Rosario, who’s worked here forever and knows this place inside and out, tries to fix it. All to no avail.

Geoff is being remarkably calm, cool, and philosophical about it. This is probably because he’s seen it all before, it’s a very cool day and this is Cabernet Sauvignon, which we’re going to ferment warm anyway. You don’t want to think about his mood if this was a hot day and white grapes (shriveled Chardonnay isn’t what we have in mind). Of course every repairman in the valley who knows how to deal with a crusher-stemmer is busy. Like the grapes, we have to wait our turn. A neighbor tries to fix it. Nope.

Geoff remembers that another neighbor has a small crusher-stemmer. If they’re not using it, maybe we can borrow it. Voila! This is one of the things I love about this industry and this valley - people are unstintingly generous and neighborly!

I think this crusher is smaller than Geoff remembered. I thought ours is small, but now there’s a truly tiny, very cute, red, Italian model sitting on our crushpad. And it works! But it works slowly. Very slowly. We’re not talking about tons per hour; we’re talking pounds per hour.

As the crushing goes on, Geoff becomes concerned that the 2 tons will overwhelm it and we won’t be the only ones with a broken crusher. OK, that’s it. We’re going to have to wait until ours is fixed. Maybe by this evening. So, on day 18 of crush, with no time off for good behavior, Geoff is looking at crushing by moonlight.

Consensus is that it’s an electrical problem. Maybe an electrician can get here sooner. Worth a shot.

Sometimes people wonder about the difference between making wine at a small winery vs. a large one, and this is one of the times that it becomes glaringly obvious. At a large winery, you may well have more than one crusher-stemmer and, if not, you call the maintenance department, stat. At a large winery, when it’s time to drain the wine and shovel the pomace (skins and seeds) out of the tank so it can be pressed, a work order is sent from the winemaking staff to the cellar crew. At a small winery, you flip a coin with your brethren (if they exist) for the privilege of crawling in there and getting the job done. There are lots of ways to get to a similar end.

Geoff clearly loves being a hands-on winemaker and being in touch (literally) with the wines every step of the way, even if it means getting those hands dirty, shoveling pomace. But, he probably wouldn’t object to having a maintenance department at the moment.

8:00 PM: As the moon rises, the crusher’s repaired and ready to go!

Coda: That was some of the sweetest smelling Cabernet ever coming out of the crusher and into the fermentation tank. We figure it kinda liked all that fretting and special attention, not to mention keeping the boss up late. Look for a very expressive Estate Cabernet Sauvignon indeed from Goosecross in 2006

Another Year, Another Harvest…

September 14, 2006 in Harvest Report, Living in Napa Valley, Vineyard Update, Wine, Wine Blogs, Wine Education and Wine News. 0 Comments

The feeling is anything but that. No matter how many harvests I witness, there’s nothing like the feeling when that first box of jewel-like grape clusters arrives at the winery. It still makes my heart race and tears spring to my eyes. Don’t know why. But I’d venture to guess that most true, hands-on winemakers feel the same way (actually, maybe they’re crying in anticipation of all the weeks of 24/7 work ahead rather than out of sentiment!). The vintage doesn’t start with the crush. A whole lot of their time and effort over most of the past year has been toward the goal of producing a great next vintage. Of course, they’ve got to take care of the wines they made last crush, but the next vintage starts calling pretty soon after the last one was put to bed in barrels.

At least for a small producer like Goosecross, the Winemaker is also the Vineyard Manager, and he gets really up-close and personal with the crop. He’s been walking the vine rows repeatedly, starting last winter with pruning, and then on to cultivating, shoot thinning, cluster thinning, checking for nutrient deficiencies and pest problems, more thinning, and he’s still walking now, checking the sugar and acid, tasting. He has a relationship with those vines.

And harvest is his one chance the whole year to get it right. You know if you make beer, or almost anything else, you can order the ingredients and get into production when it’s convenient. Not wine. When the grapes are ready, you’d better be in the mood! He needs to make the right decisions every step of the way from fresh grapes to wine and it all happens rather quickly. Once the wine is made, its basic character is pretty much formed and the goal is to sculpt and hone - not to do damage control.

We’ve started with a bang this year! 71/2 tons of Sauvignon Blanc Tuesday the 12th, 8 tons more on Wednesday, Chenin Blanc on Thursday and Cabernet from Howell Mountain on Friday! Literally, tons of work! We’ve got a play-by-play of the Goosecross crush if you check our Harvest Calendar, which is updated regularly. I think you’ll be surprised to see how quickly grape juice converts to wine, which is why it’s 24/7, and leads to the key phrase for surviving the crush: “Stock up. It takes a whole lot of beer to make good wine!”