WineGrape Grower Relations

Monday and Tuesday were spent shadowing K & C while they sampled grapes. I met them at the first of three vineyards we will be sampling off of Alexander Road. Sampling is an important part of the process as a winemaker. It is often times a partnership between you, the winemaker, and the viticulturalist or vineyard manager on how the grape growing is managed and also determining when to pick fruit. Having a good relationship with your grape grower is important because there are many ways to farm the grapes and various methods affect the quality and concentration of the grapes. C has a method to his sampling which is picking grapes from different parts of the cluster. K and I leave him alone while he does his thing which frees us up to talk and taste grapes haphazardly. I'm getting a good sense of when the grapes are reaching readiness to pick. When you eat the grape, you want to chew on the skin and spit out the seeds. If you see the green on the seed, it's still not ready and determining WHEN depends a lot of the weather. Sun/Heat can cause the grapes to ripen faster. K showed me what to look for in sunburned red grapes. It's hard to tell since the berries are so dark, but after she pointed it out, I had a better sense of what to look for. The merlot and Cab Sauv are still a ways. The Semillion was definitely ready so K & C made their calls to the growers. Meanwhile, I had a grand time interviewing Bill DenHoed at the DenHoed Vineyards off Alexander Road about viticulture practices. He's a fun character and very knowledgeable. It's obvious he is passionate about the quality of his grapes and obsessive about keeping winemakers like K satisfied with what the vineyards are producing. It was an interesting perspective. A lot of his stuff goes south to Bonny Doon. He also showed me some 'radical' and 'experimental' trellising and canopy management. Whatever that means. It was amazing to me how one row of grapes could have the same characteristics, yet two rows over the grapes have been framed differently and the grape can taste different. One thing I have truly enjoyed since coming out here are the Horse Heaven Hills to the south of many of the vineyards. The hills are spectacular at sunset. I wish I could, but I don't do the hills justice with my little point and shoot camera. I'll have to look for a professional shot on Flickr and try to post a link here.

Wednesday was spent preparing the tasting room for the new artist who will be dispalying her artwork. Terri Clark will be featured at the Yakima Art Festival at which yours truly will be pouring for Chinook. I can't wait to meet her and see her work. In the afternoon, I racked about 400 gallons of the 2005 Cab Franc into oak barrels. We need to make room for the Semillon coming in tomorrow.. Yep, we are crushing tomorrow. That means another looong day. But fun day. I love crush days because that means the whole crew is working as a team. Sometimes we get some volunteers and new faces to chat up. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Well, I'm bone tired and ready for some rest. Catch up later.

Cheers!
CellarGirl

What an amazing weekend! J and J visited me at the right time. They crewed on Saturday morning's 6 ton crush of Sauv Blanc. It was great to have some extra hands because we clipped through that load much faster than we did the last and we did twice as much. It's always a nice to see crush through a new person's eyes and enthusiasm. Grown men turn into big kids when they get to be part of something fun and special. Also, being on the sorting table gives you plenty of time to chat and catch up with one another. It also makes the time go much faster. Saturday evening, J and J went over to the "night glow" which was part of the Prosser Balloon Rally and entered the drawing for a hot air balloon ride. They won! Isn't that exciting? Out of hundreds of people, those lucky ducks won. The problem was: it was a ride for one person. So brother and sister flipped a coin for who got to go. Big sister J, pulled rank so she got to go up. Bright and early on Sunday morning, we drove down to the Prosser airfield to claim the ride. It was a beautiful, crisp pre-dawn morning. Even though, there was barely any light out, the airfield was busy with activity. Balloon pilots and their crews were laying out their hot air balloon gear in neat rows. One by one, the balloons got filled with big fans and then as they filled up, the hot gas was next to fill the balloon and gracefully as a cloud, the balloons lifted up in the air ever so quietly. It was a true delight to see and experience this. J was excited about taking her first hot air balloon ride. I've taken one so I know the feeling of trepidation and wonder as you lift off the ground. It was fun to see the expression on her face since I could imagine what she was feeling. Her smiling face became smaller and smaller as she lifted high into the sky. Brother J and I stood waving from the ground, but we were quickly distracted by the 50th anniversary Mickey Mouse balloon. You could hear little children yelling, "it's Mickey MOOUSE!!! MOM! It's Mickey, it's Mickey!" After taking a whole bunch of pictures. We jumped in the car and chased J's balloon from the roads and followed to the landing site. And that was all before 8am! The rest of the day was spent wine tasting in Yakima Valley and Red Mountain. We especially enjoyed our time at Kiona vineyards. We also found time to hike in Richland. I was really sad to see them go on Sunday afternoon, but I'm glad we had a really amazing weekend.

Day before the Big Crush

Today was a nice, easy day. Colin and I painted barrels in the morning. When you get new oak barrels, you need to paint a treatment to prevent mildew for storing. Most of the day was spent gabbing in the sun at the crushpad, paint brushes in hand. We headed into downtown Prosser for lunch. It's a buzz right now because this is the weekend of the Prosser Hot-Air Balloon Rally. Nice. It's going to be pretty tomorrow to look up in the sky and see those balloons. Makes me think of my Napa Valley balloon ride last year. That was fun.
Originally, I was planning on going into Seattle today with Kay to do deliveries, but stayed behind so I can catch up on work around here. Clay and Gary went over to the vineyards on their own and brought in 6 tons of Sauvignon Blanc. Oh boy. It's gonna be one LOoooong, long day tomorrow. But,I'd much rather crush day then have a bottling day.

Update on the visitors: turns out T & D just bought a house (hurray for them!)so they won't be joining us this weekend. Darn! We could've used all the help we can get. Ha! Just kidding. I was looking forward to seeing them again too. Well, J & J are still coming up so I'm looking forward to having some company at the crashpad.

Cheers!
CellarGirl

Hurray! I'm getting visitors this weekend. J, her bro, T & D are driving up from Seattle. They picked a great weekend since we will be crushing more Sauvignon Blanc on Saturday. I'll give them the option to help or watch. It's also the Prosser Balloon Festival this weekend so the skies will be filled with beautiful and colorful hot air balloons. I'm looking forward to a visit with friends and a chance to relax. Must get some rest now since we will be busy sampling grapes in the vineyard tomorrow.

Cheers!
CellarGirl

It's been a busy few days at the crushpad. Over the weekend we crushed the sauvignon blanc and then spent Monday and Tuesday racking off lees and racking juice to other tanks. The exciting part of Tuesday was finding a bumble bee in the juice in the tank we just racked to. Leave it to the guys to come up with some fancy way to get it out of the tank. It was floating about 8 feet down from the top so they got a hose and prepared to siphon it off. Gary and Colin were the dynamic duo. Success! Colin managed to siphon it out, but then Gary put some reverse pressure and poor Colin sucked juice. Not a happy camper. But he was the hero of the day. Yesterday was a long, long day. I spent the day before running citric through the filters in preparation for bottling. We started off cleaning and heat sterilizing all the equipment. Then we set up our stations on the bottling line. I was in charge of placing the glass on the line, Dwight managed QA, Kay managed the pump regulation, Colin, Clay and Gary were in charge of labels, boxing and pallet stacking. Lots of physical activity. In the end, we bottled over 500 cases of the Chardonnay. That's 5 pallets of boxes stacked 4 high. Not a small feat for a small crew. K & C took us out to mexican last night. Margarita time.

Well, today's is a day off so I'm catching up o n posts and emails. Then, I'm heading to the Tri-Cities mall. A girl has gotta shop!

Tasting Room
Spent Saturday in the Tasting Room pouring wine for the folks stopping by on their bikes and in their cars. It was mostly a friendly crowd of repeat customers who know K and C very well. It was nice to see the personal relationships they have built by being in the valley for a long time. Took a break in the middle of the afternoon to have a personal tour of the Hogue Cellar production facility. David, our host, is also a Davis grad and did this as a special favor to K. Most impressive was their wine lab and the phenolics analysis equipment. I caught a glimpse of Jordan the red wine maker. I remember Jim mentioning a Davis grad was working there. In the evening, we had a nice outdoor dinner/BBQ with K & C and their family members who had driven up from Corvallis: John, Amanda and their little daugher Elizabeth. Also at the dinner were Martha, Marge, Colin and I along with K & C. Prensa stayed in the car since she didn't have a sweater, poor thing was freezing. We had a our fleece and layers so we didn't mind at all.

K and I started our morning fairly late. We decided to take it easy since the weekend is shaping up to be busy with visitors on Saturday, crushing Sunday and bottling on Monday. I learned how to operate a pallet jack today. It was pure comedy. The way you steer is counterintuitive so I spent a lot of time doing half turns. I looked like Austin Powers trying to parallel park. Not a pretty sight. But I'm sure it was amusing. But I did get the hang of it and successfully parked a half a dozen pallets of barrels...in some tight spaces, I might add! Not too shabby. The morning was spent racking the cab franc into barrels. That was easy. A lot of cellar work is wet, damp and cold. Did I mention that already? Rubber boots are important. I just want to reiterate that to those who are considering running away from their regular lives to join the circus like I'm doing.
I really enjoyed today and having K all to myself. The pace was nice and we had some great conversations in between work.

By Mid- afternoon the sun had come out and there for a break and time to walk among the vines with my little dog in tow. Prensa barely clears the tallest blade of grass so she did a lot of hopping over clumps of grass. We're wrapping up now with some blind tastings of the chardonnay to determine how much malic to add before bottling. My feet are a little weary but mostly I'm ready to take a nice hot shower, get this grape juice and wine outta my hair, and unwind with some wine.

Cheers!
CellarGirl

First "real" day at the winery.
This morning was spent in the wine lab. I learned about the importance of cleanliness. All equipment has it's place "mise en place" which makes for an organized winery. I rinsed out the stainless steel tanks using extremely hot water (+150 degrees) fed into the tank with a hose and splash ball. This effectively cleaned out the tank which had some tartaric crystals. I was very glad when K told me I did not have to climb in there to scrub down. Everything here is scrubbed with proxy clean which is a low impact cleaner. After that, we took a sample of the Sauvignon Blanc (2006 Upland) which was pressed two days ago to perform some lab tests. The three lab tests are: Measuring Brix, Titratable Acid, and Ph levels. K's set-up is very high tech so I feel like I'm getting a little spoiled with the measuring and equipment available. Next, we will be racking the wine and adding yeast from the bottom per vinquiry's new suggestion.

Wednesday was another driving day. I overnighted in Bend, OR and then head out for another 4 hour drive to Prosser.
The drive along WA-14 was beautiful. The weather was perfect with blue skies and big puffy clouds. The Columbia Gorge River was a dark and swirling contrast agains the calm skies. There were vineyards facing the Columbia River as I passed Benton. When I hung a left onto WA-221 I passed the Chateau St. Michelle vineyards and the Columbia Crest vineyards as well.

OMG. What am I doing? I am driving across three states to take part in a thrilling, exciting adventure in Wine. I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. For the next 6 weeks, I will be working as an apprentice/cellar rat to Winemaker K at CW in Prosser. In exchange for doing the grunt work/cleaning in the winery, I will gain invaluable knowledge working alongside a winemaker I hold in high regard. How does that saying go..."if you do something you love, work doesn't feel like work..." Well, ask me at the end of the week. I will be making daily blog entries on my experience, feelings and observations about my apprenticeship. I'm approaching this from a complete novice standpoint and I hope that the one person out there that is reading this blog (hi Mom!) will live vicariously through me and perhaps inspire you to do something fun, a little risky and fulfill your dreams. Speaking of dreams, I need to get some sleep so I can start out early tomorrow.

Cheers,
CellarGirl