2009 Crush

Crush, the period during which grapes are harvested, sorted, destemmed, soaked, fermented, punched-down, pampered, racked, pressed, settled and barreled, is over for 2009. Crush is anticipated with excitement, initiated with glee, begun enthusiastically, and somewhere after 2-4 weeks of insufficient sleep, ended with great relief, exhaustion and some melancholy.

In any given Crush, the first time I punch down a thick cap, the first time I see the roiling purple/red foam from the carbon dioxide released by the yeast, and the first time I smell a perfect ferment, these are still entralling to me. And it stays that way, nearly throughout Crush until the time I realize that if I fall asleep while punching down and fall into the fermenter, I'll probably ruin the wine and never wake up.

Crush 2009: Hard work, lots of laughs, and great people helping

I'll tell you the rest of the story with pictures and a video. Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy of Rick Samco.

A timelapse video of our daily mid-day punchdowns

 

The first fruit in was from Fairsing Vineyard, a new vineyard in Yamhill-Carlton. It is owned by Mary Ann and Mike McNally, pictured here.	The fruit arrives in totes such as this, and is then slowly loaded onto the sort table

 

Then the sorting begins. We remove all foreign material (leaves, stems, gravel, insects), unripe fruit, or any rot, Anything that is not perfect grape clusters is removed.

Strongly believing in "garbage in, garbage out", we are fanatical about sorting. Crews of this size are unusual, but we think it makes a difference in the wine.	It all looks rather placid in these still images, but this shot gives you a better sense of what it is like on the sort line.
	Make sure the cluster is perfect. Repeat...
Only the purist, cleanest grapes fall into the destemmer, where the berries are separated from the stems

 

Then the grapes fall into a fermenter where dry ice is sometimes added to cool the grapes down. The discarded stems go to the compost pile.

Can't have crush without a shared meal. With wine, of course.