Day 1

I had almost forgotten what I was doing here in Napa; where my passion for wine came from, what winemaking is all about, and the back-to-basics of cultivating something from the earth...

...but today it all came back to me. HARVEST HAS BEGUN!!!

Our first lot of precious estate-grown Sauvignon Blanc grapes were lovingly picked by Barbour Vineyard Team, (arguably the best in the valley) in the wee morning hours, and dropped at our feet to begin the process.

Wide-eyed and more overly estastic than usual, I watched as the tender light-yellow and green grapes were forklifted up to where our magical receiving system is. And then all of a sudden... WOOSH! Grapes were dumped onto the sorting table that I stood at, and we began furiously hand sorting through clusters with lighting speed. You dont even have time to really think when you are sorting because the shaker table is moving the clusters along to the destemmer so fast, your mind becomes a stream of consciousness with single thoughts...

Look. Bad. Good. Okay. Toss. Push. Eww! Bug in my Hair! Leaf. Twig. Bug! Water berry. Sun burnt. Perfect.

I was honored to be sorting with a group of essentially all women. In company was the dynamic Keever mother-daughter duo, and standing right next to me was winemaker Celia Welch!!! (as in 'my idol', as in 2008 Food & Wine magazine Winemaker of the year!!!) Needless to say, I was starstruck and her fabulous assistant also sorted with us.


A couple hours of sorting was over in a blink. On to the next steps involving the tanks, dry ice, shoveling, hoses, clamps...all kinds of fun stuff. Our system is very very efficient and gets the job done with as little stress on the fruit as possible. The remainder of the day was devoted to making it look like nothing even happened at the winery today...ah yes, cleaning! A fabulous workout and stress reliever but also got me completely soaked to the bone and exhausted beyond belief.

After hours of getting the most desirable berries and their juice ready, the happy family of grapes from our vineyard is currently snuggled together and relaxing in their new home inside the tank. From the sip of straight grape juice that I slurped from a wine glass, (which tasted like fine granulated sugar-coated pear and apricot) I can tell this is going to be another amazing vintage at Keever.

So happy, so tired, so ready for more...Cheers!