September fifteenth to September twenty-first: Sparkling Wine

First day. early again, but this time only by about a week. The last couple of brix always seem to sneak up on us so without much chance to do finally preparations we’re off to the races. Sparkling wine gives the worst impression of harvest. Acid levels are high, sugar low. Picking is slow as we’re selectively going through the vineyards. Processing is slow because we have to hand fill the press, and while whole bunches so it can only take a quarter of the usual. Luckily, picking probably takes 4 times as long as well. But by the time the press its going, it’s clear that this is a bumper year for sparkling. The chardonnay juice has never been better. And after three days of work, we’re onto pinot. One would expect the pinot noir to provide the bigger challenge than the chardonnay, but comparing the two is like night and day. Clean, evenly ripe fruit row after row. We picked two and a half blocks of pinot to make this year’s brut upwards of 60-70% pinot noir, and the rest going to a beautiful brut rose base.

After six days, here’s what we had to show: 18 bruises, 1 bee sting, missing a working finger, 5000L of juice, 16 x 5 x 15kg hurled over my head, but we’re all still in high spirits. So far so good.

The next question is fermentation…

I was pushing for a style that we had never tried before; and with my limited experience I was solely basing this idea on what I had read out of books. But I was convinced. we had always done the latter, and this year, with it being Caroline (my mom) and I’s first year, she was not convinced it was the year for straying from the norm. But I wanted to make this vintage our own. I wanted to come back to wines when they were done and taste something different from previous years. After several motivational speeches on my part, my way won out. It was only then that I realized that the pressure of the outcome of our most popular white label wine was all on me… and the stress kicked in.

Rookie wine-making experience: pinot noir needs less pressing than chardonnay when going into the sparkling. 2011 is going to be mother-of-pearl. If you think it’s a charming feature, I’ll gladly take the credit.

September twenty-fourth till September thirtieth: Sauvignon Blanc

Happily we have moved the sauvignon blanc to an earlier pick slot than last year (which was whenever we had time).  This year it was the first of the still wines to be picked. As a result the crop was fresh, clean and a dream to work with. Too bad we only have 2 acres planted. With cool fruit and a chilled fermentation, the freshness of the fruit shines through; so much white grapefruit. When doing my 7am alcohol tests it went great with breakfast.

October fourth till October eighteenth: The Rush

It happens to us every year. The chardonnay, pinot noir and gamay all ripen at the same time; ending up with a window of 6 days to do 14 days’ work. This season started with chardonnay, the vine that was enjoying the rain the least. Luckily for us it was a relatively quick pick as the bulk of the sorting had happened during the sparkling pick. Then a rain day, which we productively used to research wiccan spells to control the weather. Then pinot; there was no hesitation on our part to get it out of the field. October was already shaping up to be a hard month, as we weren’t about to make it any harder on ourselves or our vineyards; we were going to be while everything was clean and the quality was high. We decided against a hand-sorted white label pinot noir this year; and the reason was time. There was great fruit out there, but the longer it took to get it out of the fields; the less great fruit there was going to be. And that went for all varieties, at only two weeks into harvest, we were already getting backed up. Typical harvest schedule.

For gamay, it had been our plan for months to get a supplemental crew in to harvest so in our minds the pick was going to take a day or two tops. However, this didn’t happen. A thousand excuses were made to us, but at the end of the day none of it mattered, all that mattered was that we had one day to do what had then become about five days’ worth of work. there was nothing to be done but to get at it. In between my winery chores I would go out and pick a few lugs, but it didn’t make a difference. The harvest was going to take as long as it did. And then the rain; from a beautiful perfect week to pick the pinot (thank god) to an utterly dismal week to harvest gamay; the stress was starting to hit home. We try to remind ourselves again and again that you can’t let the weather get you down; because there is nothing you can do to stop it. But I must have spent hours feverish scribbling plans for a machine that could trap the vineyards at a moment’s notice… but the weather system eventually passed, and harvest went on again as usual, and in the backs of our minds we knew we were luckier than lots of folks to have started picking when we did.

The End: Final Notes

Harvest ended October 29^th at 3pm. We crushed the last batch of cab franc and were leaving it to soak for a period. But by then we were in a routine, it hardly changed to be finished with the crusher as there was so much else going on. Well into two week of pump-overs for the reds, which we were still doing three times daily, we hardly had a chance to think about anything else in a day, except maybe how is there temperature of the reds, how is the alcohol, how is the color extraction etc. I couldn’t even remember which tanks had the whites from the first week in them… ultimately all the reds got between 15-20 days skin contact. Great color, great depth of flavor; undoubtedly worth the work.

I am going back to Montreal in a few days, and I joke that I won’t miss the farm at all. And although I was undoubtedly grateful for the break, I clearly would spend time wondering what’s going on back home right now…

Over the winter there will be racking and bottling for the whites, there will be barrel aging and malo of the reds, so this isn’t really the end of the project at all…

sorry we’re late! it was a long harvest!

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