It’s over. Thanks to the assistance of five volunteers and new friends last week we harvested the last of our own fruit – Tempranillo. It is now pressed and resting in a big tank.The crush this year, which began at the end of August, was memorable.
My second trip to Willcox to pick up fruit from Arizona Stronhold Vineyards and Sweet Sunrise Vineyards resulted in a load of two tons of Chardonnay and two tons of Malvasia. Luckily driving out of the vineyard Peter noticed a flat tire on the trailer – fortunate because I was able to repair it in “downtown” Willcox. Unfortunately while tooling along I-10 at about 65 mph, the truck totally blew a rear tire. It took me about 2 hours to change the tire – a rather complex process considering I had a ton of grapes in the bed of the truck and three tons under tow on the trailer and interstate traffic was whizzing along past me at dizzying speeds.
When I finally got back to the winery at 3 pm, crush began – not ending until 3 am the next morning, even with Joan’s help loading the press. To bed at 3am and up at 6 am to get the next load of Syrah. Another flat tire, 4 new truck tires, a new trailer tire, crazy moments under tow battling semi-trucks at 70mph. Repeat for Sangiovese Clone 2, Nebbiolo, Syrah from AZ Stronghold, and the Sangiovese Brunello clone.
I’m glad it’s over. It was much more logistic
ally easy to harvest our own Syrah, Tempranillo and little bits of Mourvedre, Riesling and Zinfandel.
The fruit looks lovely, the young wine is yummy. Picking, crushing, pressing, racking, cleaning, pumping, tasting, worrying. Repeat as needed. That’s harvest. Romantic – on the big screen maybe. In reality – for about half a day. Do I love it? Yes
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that's a really nice post pa.
ReplyDeletedespite the hardships, it still sounds pretty incredible.