Day 15: Saturday September 8th

 This was the third Saturday in a row that we harvested some fruit.  At 11am we had half a ton of Teroldego being backed into my backyard.

 It's a pretty tight fit and because of the limited space one has to back up the whole way with very little visibility.  Also, the truck was borrowed so there was additional pressure to return it in perfect condition.  Those of you who know me are familiar with how I treat vehicles.  So it was up to Todd to back it up.

 With excellent truck maneuvering skills, Todd quickly had the truck parked behind my house and at the entrance to the winery.

 Since the tank is filled with Barbera, we had to destem and ferment into a second half ton bin.  We set the destemmer on top of the bin, backed the truck up close to us and started moving fist fulls of clusters from the truck to the destemmer.  We did not call for back up this time, but Zac was on hand to be photographer and move clusters.

 The plastic bin was supposed to catch the stems.  It did a poor job.

 Todd fed the clusters, I cranked the destemmer.  It took us a little over an hour to get through the whole bin.

Then it was time to clean up.

Teroldego.  Not a cultivar I have ever had before (or heard of actually), but an Italian friend mentioned it would go well with Barbera so what the hell.  I'm taking the leap of faith that this Italian knows his Italian wine.  Did I mention this is the same Italian who sold me the fruit, so there is that to consider . . . . .

While Todd and I cleaned up, Zac ran to the store to pick up a bag of dry ice.

We use dry ice to cool the grapes and protect the headspace before inoculation.  If it didn't cost $18 per bag, I would buy it all the time because, man, dry ice is awesome.

Also, the only application I know for dry ice is winemaking, so it was surprising to me that they sell it at the grocery store.  What do normal people use dry ice for?

Then we covered the bin with a tarp and wrapped it tight with bungee cords.  Before all the dry ice was gone, I stole a piece to go into the white barrel.

One more harvest day to go. And many, many punchdowns.

-L