Crush went very well this season and the 2013 Vintage is already looking to be excellent. Fall harvest and crush are two very important parts to the winemaking process. Choosing when to pick the grapes and making sure they arrive at the winery in a timely manner is one of the most critical parts of the process.
On a day to day basis, crushing requires making sure there is enough room in each tank for the amount of grapes arriving. We have several different sized tanks, because ideally each grape type should fill up to about 70-80% of a tank. Making sure all the equipment is clean and working is an obvious step but important because the faster the grapes get into the tank the better. Half ton bins of grapes are dumped individually into a hopper where leaves and bad grapes are picked out. The grapes then drop into a de-stemmer which knocks them off the stems. The final step is pumping the grapes into a tank.
Depending on the Vintage, crush typically lasts from September through October. Grapes ripen at different rates depending on varietal and vineyard.
Grapes being dumped into the hopper
Half ton bins of grapes
Juice from a fermentation tank (Photo by Sy Bean)
Pump used for transfer grapes from de-stemmer to tank (Photo by Sy Bean)
Chris talking about equipment (Photo by Sy Bean)
De-stemmer
Close up of grapes
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