Folie a Deux Crush Fantasy

Well, today was the last day of crush and what a way to go out.  Not only were we crushing Cabernet purchased from SilverOak, but it decided to rain on us today.  It was great, loved every minute of it.  Good thing we got the grapes in today cuz it may have been delayed due to the wet weather. 

The grapes tasted very good, and were a little bit bigger than previous loads of cab grapes.  We put about six bins into fermenting barrels and put the rest into tanks.

So guess how much these barrels weigh once all filled up…..929 lbs!!! Wanna know how we do pump overs on those fermenting barrels??  Since they are on rollers, we roll them 5 times, 3 times a day.  8 barrels were more than enough with the Stagecoach in there and all, but now we’ve got 16 barrels.  Oh my back. Tomorrow, I will be sore. Go Sharks!!

Whats SOV? Well, thats winespeak for Silver Oak Vineyards, and 25tons of fruit we purchased from them is coming in this Thursday. Oh yea! That’s gotta be some killer Cab on its way to Folie a Deux. Not that we don’t already have some killer cab of our own, but anyone who knows wine should know that Silver Oak is in a league of its own. Hence my excitement. We will do the same thing to this fruit that was done with the Stagecoach Cab.  We will fill 8 fermenting barrels and dump the rest into a tank. 

Barrel Fermentors

Totally excited to check out the grapes and see if they are what everyone says they are to be, some excellent fruit.  More on it when I taste it, yum yum.

Sharks game is on, Peace out!

So I guess (weather permitting) this week will be the last of the grapes for Folie a Deux.  The cold and partly cloudy weather has slowed things down once again.  So I am going to make the best of this last week of crush.  There will be plenty of work to do after crushing, so we will see how much longer I have on my internship.

I havent mentioned this before so I thought I’d write about it.

At 7am, when we have our first break, I have started to bring eggs and bacon for the crew and I.  And since there is a small stove in the breakroom, its been really nice to be able to cook up some grub really quickly before getting back to work.  Nothing like a good cooked breakfast before burning a thousand calories.

Today the crush began of the Stagecoach Cab.  We started around 5:20am, going nice and slow to not let any excess leaves or stems enter the pump.  I started by working the forklift, lifting the grapes into the hopper and then setting up a rack and return, then a pumpover, then back to the shaker table.

After nine bins into a tank, we dumped 4 more into the fermenting bins.

Fermenting Barrels

The wheels are for the barrels for pump overs

Then finshed off the remaining four bins into the tank.  I’m really excited to see how this wine will turn out. 

The only barrel with a view

More grapes tomorrow. More to come

Barrel Fermenting

 Tomorrow we will be crushing the Stagecoach Cab, and instead of going straight to a tank for a week or two, the whole grape will go straight to fermenting barrels.  I have never seen this before so its really exciting for me to be able to learn how this is done.  As for today, busy with Rack and Returns, Pump Overs, and Pressing of Merlot. Merlot fermented in bin.

Merlot Free Run and Berry

Free Run and grapes

Got to thinking today how different can the press wine be compared to whole berry, compared to crushed grapes.  And man oh man, its a night and day difference.  The wine fermented in whole berry tastes so much better compared to crushed wine that has more mouth feel.

Slow day today with only pumpovers and clean up to do, no grapes for awhile.  I believe there is only a little more Merlot and the rest of the Cab load left to this harvest.  We will see how next week is.

Maybe because I’m cursed, but the last month has been nothing but car trouble for me.  I own a Jeep Grand Cherokee that just eats up gas and my wallet, so my parents came up from Monterey to exchange cars with me.  My sis isnt using her car down at UCLA so I took that one.  Two weeks pass, and the car starts to have steering problems. So my parents come up again to exchange my sis’s car with my dad’s car so it can get fixed.  Two days pass (my Friday), I’m on my way home and my dad’s car breaks down in Napa, an hour away from home!! Stranded!!

So I have my friend Jake that works just five minutes away from me at Domaine Carneros come pick me up. Thank God. But I have to deal with this on my day off. Not how I wanted to start my weekend (one day weekend). Missed work Monday because I had no car and Jake doesnt work that day, so wasted day.

Now I am on my fourth car in one month. Crazy I know… I’m cursed!

Seems like the outlook on this year’s crop depends on who you ask. If you talk to a winemaker, the quality of the fruit coming in is high and looks very promising for the finished wine. But at the same time, if you talk to a grower, this year’s crop has been disappointing.  Although the quality is great, yields are down compared to normal levels (in tons/acre), so loads are coming in very light.  One grape grower I talked to recently said that he usually gets around 50 tons from his crop, this year….20-25 tons.  He usually collects around $100,000 from his grapes, this year he expects…maybe $30,000. 

That’s just amazing how the weather throughout the growing season can affect the production of grapes. And once the grapes come in light, wine production is lower than expected, and sales may be lower as a result.  A big chain reaction of sorts, that starts in the vineyard every year. But look for 2008 wines to be high in quality.  The Napa Cab and Merlot both look great.

How’d my day go? Sun up Sun Down. 15hours, sore back, cut hands. Sleep, only 6hours then another 12hr day.

How was your 9-5?

Still think you wanna come buy a vineyard and live the wine country dream?