Happy Holidays!

This is not my house.

These people take Christmas seriously.  I want to meet them.

 This is my humbly decorated home.

 Better at night.

 Things are pretty calm at work.  Everything is twinkly and festively decorated.

Reggie our facilities maintenance technician spent weeks putting all the lights around the winery.  You can see his tiny head in this picture.

 The Great Pumpkin has been replaced by a Great Christmas Tree.

 The salon.

 More salon decorations.

 Salon wreath.

 Besides lights and trees and decorations.  My other favorite things this time of year are the gift baskets! Yum!

 This is another gift from a supplier.  A giant box of some of my favorite cookies.

Five pounds of cookies.  Five!

 Oh wait, then there's my favorite favorite favorite thing that happens this time of year.  The company Holiday Party.  I am drinking all the wine.

Me and fabulous lab intern Joanna.

 Me and fellow winemaker TK.

 Happy Holidays everyone!

-L

The Great Pumpkin Chronicles

2008

Every year my winery gets a gargantuan pumpkin to display in the foyer.  My first year with the pumpkin was in 2008 as an intern.  In 2009 and 2010 I was working for another winery that did not share the same festive enthusiasm for giant holiday decoration.

2011

In 2011 the pumpkin and I were reunited.  I was happy to be back and I think he was glad to have me back.

I couldn't find a picture for 2012.  I think it's because I was not in a festive mood that year.  Which is really unfortunate and has turned into a life lesson and personal mantra: "don't be a Debi Downer - take a picture with the pumpkin, you'll be glad you did later when you are trying to complete your pumpkin chronicle."  I'll work on shortening it later.

 2013

Back in the saddle.  2013 was a great year, it was early, it was quick and it was smooth.  Now it's time to think about all the pumpkin pie this baby could make.

This is the largest pumpkin in recent memory 1,508lbs.  Thats a whole lot of pie.

Happy pumpkin November!

-L

End of Harvest Celebration Smoothies

This is what my lab bench looks like daily during Harvest.  Everyday we collect a sample from the recently filled tanks and put it in a glass for everyone to smell and taste the progress of the fermentation.

In the beginning it's 2 or 3 tanks and quickly the entire bench fills up.  Mid harvest the table is completely full.  On the right are the tanks that just started fermenting (still pink, little skin contact), and as the glasses increase to the left are the tanks that have been fermenting longer.

On the other side of the glasses the bench is full of what we need to run analysis on all the tanks samples.

All the grape juice floating around gave us an idea to make smoothies.  So on the last day of harvest we brought the necessary tools.

 We removed the seeds from the grapes, bought some Sorbet, and put it in the blender with ice.

Wine grapes and sorbet.

Intern Jenna was in charge of making the smoothies.  She/we called them "Jenna Juice".

 This is Jenna's first winery internship, that's why she looks so excited.  Also, she's from Ohio.

 The smoothies turned out delicious but it might have had more to do with all the sorbet we put in.  Still, it was a great way to celebrate!

Harvest 2013 is over now and it was delicious.

-Lucia

Night Harvest

This is a Bobard.  These majestic beasts can be equipped with different attachments that rotate depending on the time of year and the type of work that needs to be done in the vineyards.  This time of the year they have harvest lights that light up the vineyards so the workers can see what they are doing.  Also this one has a platform for easy viewing.

Last week I went to the vineyards at 5am to see the harvest and ride the Bobard.  These are picking bins lined up at the end of rows.

We pick at night so the fruit arrives at the winery cool and to avoid overheating the pickers.  This is how green the leaves look with the bright harvesting lights.

Boarding the Bobard.

A sea of green.  Actually, to me this picture looks like it could be taken from underwater.

There are multiple picking locations, and therefore multiple harvest lights.  That is not the sun.

Standing on the platform over the vines.

The guys fill the blue bins.  

They work very fast because they are paid based on the weight of what they pick, not on time it takes them to pick it.

Then the bins are brought to the tractor and stacked on a pallet.

Smoking and picking.  At the same time!

This vineyard has vine that are very low to the ground, so the guys kneel or crouch, either way it's back breaking work.

The other thing that makes this Bobard special is that it has it's own espresso machine on board.  Coffee anyone?

6:40am, the sun is finally coming up.

Climb off the Bobard.

Photo Op on a tractor.

Sunrise in Napa Valley.

Stop for goodies at Bouchon Bakery in Yountville.

7:15am, watch the balloon take off.

2013 Barbera and Teroldego Harvest

 A few days before our harvest TK and I went to pick up picking bins.  Five at a time was my max. 

 I knew I kept him around for a reason.

 I am super excited because picking in small bins instead of a large half ton macro bins is not only better for the fruit because it doesn't get smashed under it's own weight, but was going to make transportation from the truck to my house significantly easier than last year. 

On Sunday September 1st, TK and I were up at 3:15am to drive from Napa to Yuba city to delivery the picking bins and help harvest.  We arrived a little before 6am.  This is a low light shot of the pickers.

We moved the picking bins from TK's truck to the flat bed trailer.

 TK filled the boxes and I carried them back to the trailer.  That made me a "swamper".

 The Yuba City Vineyard after sunrise.

Teroldego vines.

Taken from the truck on drive back to Napa at 8am.

 More scenery on the drive home from Yuba City. 9am

 By 11:00am, all the fruit was in front of my house.

One hundred and twelve bins.  So many bins.

 Fortunately all my great friends showed up to help carry it.

 New friend Josh, Eric and Joanna.

 I am so happy about our efficient system.

 Wine enthusiast Eric back for more winemaking labor.  Bottling the 2012 was just so much fun, he had to come back and get sticky and sore.  What a lovely friend.

TK and Joanna.  Jo is a winemaking intern from Georgia.  She is my right hand at work this harvest.

Getting close to the end!  

 But wait, there's a surprise in the cab of the truck.  More bins!  I mentioned it was one hundred and twelve right?

Thanks to my sister Julia for being the photographer.  And thanks to no one for telling me I put my clothes on backwards.  Hazards of getting dresses at 4:15am.  

It was Julia's idea to follow the path of the bins.  First, pick up at the trailer.

 Across the driveway, through the front gate.

 Across the hallway.

 Through the courtyard.

 Into the winery.

 And stacked up on the pile of other bins.

 TK organizing the stacks.

 All of the fruit.  So much fruit.

Josh and Eric took turns cranking the destemmer.  Joanna sorted the fruit by tossing out the unripe clusters and only feeding the juicy ripe ones to the crusher/destemmer.

The berries and juice fell into the macro bin, where TK and I scooped them into the 5 gallon buckets.

 Once full, TK dumped the buckets into the tank.  And that's how you use gravity to fill a tank when you don't have a pump.  Buckets.  You can never have too many buckets.  Or friends :)

 While sorting, Joanna found a cluster the size of my head.  Looks like a chicken to me.  Also, shirt still on backwards.  Thanks guys.

By 1pm the tank was completely full, but we still had 35 or 40 bins left.  This was unexpected but since there was only 1 tank, the rest of the fruit stayed in the macro bin.

 Mmmmm.  Grape soup.

 In a few days this brown soup will be magenta wine.  Magic.  But also chemistry.

This cluster looks like a teddy bear to me. 2:30pm, shirt finally on the right way.

Then a pizza lunch and lots of hosing down.

Next: Inoculation and pumpovers!

-L