Main Course

" Looks like on the agenda today we have...Pumpovers. Pumpovers. Pumpovers. A Screen and Tub. Sprinkler. Firehose. Sanitize. Rinse. Water push. Fermentation Monitoring. Check heater. Check glycol. Surprise juice shower!!!"

That is the daily production jargon and string of tasks invading my life, 7 days a week. We are now in the thick of production, after harvesting our entire estate plus our outsourced vineyards within a couple of action-packed days. Every morning, a new block of fruit came in with a whole new personality, look and feel. Some grapes were beautiful, round, firm skinned, juicy, perfection. Other grapes were shriveled, pebble-like, disfigured, rotten, nibbled on, gross. I touched them all. I got to stand on the front lines, the first position on the sorting table, so I really did get to see every grape come in, grab them, roll them around and discerningly decide if the clusters were good enough. Judgment day for grapes. The cabernet going into the Corra cab was perfection, along with our Syrah from the Page Nord vineyard.

There was so much variation from block to block, row to row, and even picker to picker. Chris said that since hired grape pickers are paid by the ton, the sneaky ones don't care if they put in the occasional rock, handful of leaves, or dry stems just to increase the weight!!! How rude.


During grape sorting, we found a small golf-size pencil, some green vineyard tape, and a precious little blue bellied lizard who was head down in a cluster of cabernet (not a bad place to be really, UNLESS he was not spotted and thrown into the destemmer!)

This is the main course of this experience for me, the apex, the climax, the sha-bang, the pulp. I am exhausted and look pretty gnarly with my matted wet hair slopped back into a pony tail or uneven braids, grey stained skin, and a half-awake smile. BUT, this is the way life is right now, and the wine that is going to emerge after this is over is more than worth my bitching.

Cheers,

October Photo Reel

Cheers,

Picking Up Speed

Early Tuesday morning we arrived rested and ready to receive our first harvest of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes; our baby, our flagship. It is always a little scary and nerve racking the morning of harvest because you simply don't know how the day is going to go, and just HOPE that the hours won't be too brutal on your body and mental well-being.

And then, just as I started to get too anxious, the gorgeous Napa sunrise started to communicate a message to me..."here you go, this is what you've been waiting for... so now go soak it in and enjoy."

I did in fact drink in every last drop of that day. I sorted grapes for half the day on our vibrating sorting table, watching whole clusters of rich dark purple grapes bounce along while I squished, squeezed and pulled searching for the best most plump berries. Even though 2010 is considered to be a mild year in terms of heat, it was sad to see so many berries fall victim to the sun's vigor that has occurred over the last couple days.

After a satisfying and successful first day working with Cabernet, I started to feel better about my purpose here in Napa and as an intern. Just like the hot air balloons I see every morning, you need to add a little burst of fire sometimes to propel yourself back up to see the beautiful world around you more clearly and gain perspective.

I am now proficiently performing pump-overs. The hardest part of this task is setting up the pump correctly and then finding a way to stand over the tank so that your back doesn't go out from exhaustion! I am very sore today, and I have never had so many random bruises, but I'm pretty happy to have had my hands on so many grapes this week.

Cheers,

Fall is in the air

It is fall in Napa.

The air has rapidly cooled to completely crisp this week. It is almost too chilly to keep your bedroom window open at night, but the first step out the door in the morning is shockingly refreshing and exciting.

Every street is bustling with signs of harvest. Beat up old trucks parked wherever is convenient for hauling bins, full containers of fruit being carried down the highway, and most exciting, vines bursting with ripe fruit is covering valley floor.

At Keever, patience is more than a virtue, it is a steadfast policy. Until our grapes are PERFECTLY ripe, we aren't picking a single berry.

We are all getting anxious, stir crazy, a little aggravated, but the reality is that the quality of our wine is the most important thing, especially when you make such few cases and plan to sell it all.

At the winery, we are keeping ourselves busy any way we can. We got our second block of Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the Jonquil vineyard last week, so that certainly occupied some time, but is nothing compared to what the red is going to do to our days.

Still waiting, still smiling...

Cheers,