WineWorks: Harvest is in full swing


Goldeneye bins waiting for the morning Pinot pick

I was talking with a friend/mentor the other day and asked him how harvest was going. He replied "harvest is an exercise of survival, and we are surviving".

If you've ever worked a harvest it's easy to relate to that. We are just getting started with harvest here at WineWorks. We've already had a couple marathon days and tomorrow will be another one. We are surviving and we are having fun. We are having a lot of fun!

We've been walking vineyards tasting grapes. Talking to growers and tasting grapes.. Tasting grapes and talking with consultants. Driving around northern California dropping off bins and tasting grapes. Our first fruit is in, we've got our first ferments ticking away and each new days greetings are met with conversations about how sore we are from the previous days efforts. Each day of harvest produces a new bruise, bump, ache or pain. It's all part of harvest, and it's all fun.


Colin and Andy from Tasot sorting Pinot from Keller Estate

Whole berry Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir with dry ice, ready for cold soak.

6 year old Benji shows Eric how its done

We couldn't be happier with all of our equipment. It's been fun tweaking the speed on the sorting table, elevator and destemmer getting everything just right.

Richard, Jerry, Sam and Benji sorting Pinot

Kate and Brad sorting clone 777 Pinot from Keller Estate

And then there is Mother Nature with how she keeps us guessing. There is rain in the forecast with low temperatures for the next few days. With it decisions on whether or not to pick fruit that is ready or close to ready. We go through all of the scenarios, trust me there are a lot of them, and then factor in logistics of harvest crew availability, truck rental availability and what ever else we already have scheduled.