Loving the Crush

We've seen a lot of grapes come in over the last week; Pinot Noir, Merlot, Chardonnay, Muscat Blanc, Viogner and Syrah. And of course, with more fruit comes more juice and fermentation.

With the red wines fermenting there is a lot more work to do in the cellar, mostly because process the red wines differently than the whites. With white wines the juice is pressed off the skins immediately after being crushed, but with red wine the grape skins soak with the juice for an initial "cold soak" period, and also for the entire fermentation period. This is what gives red wines their color and tannins.

During the cold soak period and fermentation, we have to do punch downs and pump overs. During fermentation red wines form a "cap", which is when all of the fermenting grape skins rise to the top and form a thick layer. Punch downs and pump overs mix the juice with the cap to ensure maximum flavor extraction, fermentation and also to help keep the temperature even throughout the holding tank or bin (one product of fermentation is heat energy which raises the temperature)



pump over from top
open sump pump over

The days when I work in the cellar doing the punch downs and pump overs I get the chance to try the fermenting juice at all different sugar levels and alcohol content. It really is amazing how the grape juice turns into wine... from such a viscous and sweet juice to a fermenting monster, gradually becoming a refined, sometimes delicate finished product.

Today I worked the morning shift, doing punch downs, pumpovers, innoculating and also some racking. It was a short day because we split the weekends up into morning and evening shifts when we dont have grapes to be crushed. I had the opportunity to show some good friends of mine (they just got engaged and are checking out CLC as a possible wedding venue)the winery after work. I really love being able to take a tour of the winery and taste wines, especially when I can show it to good friends who are also "wine buddies"... Never had so much fun working a Saturday.

Busy Day(s)

Today was the first glimpse of how busy things are going to get. We took in roughly 10 tons of Merlot, 5 tons of Viogner and a few tons of Pinot from the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a long day but it was very exciting getting to work with Pinot for the first time, and the time flew by. We wont be taking in any fruit tomorrow, so it will be a little slower.

(Viogner grapes waiting to be crushed and pressed)
(Pinot grapes being dumped into the hopper )
(sorted Pinot grapes heading to the crusher)

Its Wednesday and..

(The first of the Merlot just beginning fermentation)

The week is really flying by. Work hasn't been as physically taxing as last week (due in large part to no bottling thus far) and has also been a little more mellow. We brought in the first of our reds on Monday, a total of 5 tons of Merlot a small vineyard just down the road. We also brought in the first of the Viogner yesterday, and more Merlot this morning from our O'brien vineyard on the Corduval Golf resort.

(hydrating the yeast before innoculation)

Things are really going to be ramping up over the next couple of days, and we should be seeing more Merlot and Viogner, and also the first of our Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir! I am especially excited for the Pinot. I had a chance to taste juice from the field sample we took this morning, and it was very complex and delicious... almost a mocha java/coco profile to it. It will be very interesting to try the wine from this juice in a year or so.

I am really starting to settle in with the job. I am getting familiar and comfortable with the tasks and daily routines. The coworkers and staff are great, and it really is an excellent place to work. I feel very fortunate for the opportunity that was given to me and know that I will look back on this as a special time in both my career and life.

Busy Season Just Around the Corner

To recap last week, we bottled roughly 7400 cases which included 6 different varietals, and pressed the juice from the last of our Sauv Blanc grapes.

Looks like the red grapes will start coming in this week, with the possibility of seeing Merlot as early as tomorrow. I cannot wait to see the wine making style that is used for reds, and in particular how each varietal is handled differently. We may also be seeing Viogner and Muscat Blanc towards the end of the week. It should be very busy, fun and informative.

Bottling... Ughh. Well, We Need Something to Hold our Wine.

Well, its been a bottling week. We are on our way to the 7400 mark that will be done friday afternoon. To break things up Steve (the other intern) and I rotate days bottling... Yesterday I did some racking and barreling down, and today I was back on the bottling "assembly line".

We processed the last of the SB grapes (63 tons total) today, and should be on to the Pinot later this week... one small vineyards worth. Other than the bottling grind, this is the calm before the storm.

Im beat from todays bottling, and will enjoy the evening having some brews watching the sharks rookie game at logitech ice... GO SHARKS!!!!

A Busy Labor Day

Labor day was a busy one at CLC, for both the production team and the tasting room staff. With ripe fruit and bottling to be done, Labor Day was not a holiday this year for production. Today I helped with the bottling of our 2008 Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot, which was the original wine of CLC that was made with the grapes from the backyard of the CLC's founders in Saratoga. Now there are a few additional vineyards that provide the fruit for the '08's 2400 case production.

Bottling is a very streamlined process for us with the Bay Area Bottling mobile service. By streamlined I do not mean fun or easy (bottling 28,800 bottles of vino gets a tad, um, repetitious), just very trick if you will. Bay Area Bottling is owned by CLC, and provides bottling service for not only us, but many other wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Napa, Paso Robles and the Gilroy area. Other than operating the program and setting up the machine, which is done by Dimitri and Plamen (they run the bottling unit), there are 5 other jobs to be done... emptying the bottles to be filled, two people putting the full bottle into the cases, one person stacking 64 cases onto a pallet, and one person wrapping the cases and loading moving them with the fork... I got to do all the jobs but the fork, and probably moved about 500 cases of wine at 40lbs a pop... I will be sore tomorrow.




Jason and Steve pressed 8 tons of SB grapes... I will do grapes tomorrow to break things up. Looks like it will be all SB grapes this week, as the Viogner have slowed up a bit in ripening.

The Weekend is Here

(8 days into fermentation... tastes like apple juice!)


Earlier last week it looked as if all the SB grapes would come in by Friday, but for some reason the brix were hovering around 1 percent less than the winemakers wanted. We did one press load (4 tons) on Thursday morning, after doing two on Tuesday and Wednesday. Hopefully the rest will come down by next Tuesday. We have inoculated 6 tanks so far, with roughly 13,000 gallons of juice hissing and bubbling in the tanks. Also, there may be some Viogner grapes coming in by the end of next week.

Even without grapes to crush I was staying pretty busy over the last couple of days. Between field sampling, processing the grape samples, racking, additions and cleaning, my feet have become rather sore (now I know not to wear rubber boots all day!). The boiler is down right now, which means hot water at this time, so when we rack the tanks (3000 gallons) they have to be scrubbed by hand. This makes for a rather sweaty, wet (soaking) and tiring job. But hey, it needs to be done, and my body doesn't need the calories... plus, I don't feel as guilty having that splash of wine in the evening.



Yesterday we had a nice BBQ lunch will all of the production crew, and a couple of the folks from the business office came down too. It was a potluck and there was plenty of food... burgers, sausages, tri tip, chips, garlic bread, pasta salad, corn, cake, brownies etc. All served at a long table. It made for a nice break in the day, and I think it served as a good time for everyone to enjoy company and some good grub. As crush picks up we will be having more and more of these.

At the end of the day my girlfriend met me at the winery, and I had a chance to show her around. Jason gave me the green light to do some sampling with her, and we got to try some of the wines that are in the tanks waiting to be bottled on Monday.... O'brien vineyard Cabernet Sauvingon, Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Biagini Pinot and Chard, and Erwin Pinot, which is a limited production and we are actually out of in the tasting room. We also did a barrel sample of some of the younger Pinot in the barrel. It was the most fun wine tasting that I have done!



I am really falling in love with the job. It is a lot of hard work, but I like hard work when it is something that I am fascinated with, and want to learn as much as possible. I realize that this time is something that I will always look back on and cherish, a very special time that I don't take for granted.

The Grapes are Coming!

...And have been since early yesterday morning. Warm to hot weather over the weekend (it hit triple digits!)has ripened up the Sauv Blanc grapes, and we have been processing roughly 8 tons per day since yesterday.

The vineyard team arrives earlier than the production team, so by the time that I roll up around 7:45am, we have a full "press load" ready to go. By press load I mean enough grapes to fit in CLC's 3 ton grape press, which we actually squeeze about4 into. The grapes are in "half ton" bins (see below... bins are stacked waiting to be taken to the vineyards and filled), which hold closer to 900 lbs of Sauv Blanc grapes. Other varietals with bigger grapes and tighter clusters will actually tip the scales over half a ton.


We use a forklift to load the press, with one peron operating the fork while the other uses a shovel to endsure all of the grapes are making it into the press, and to also help level out the grapes in the press. Once shovel cannot level out the grapes, we close the lid/door on the press, rotate a couple of times, then open the lid and continue to load. Once the press is loaded, we run an automated press program, which takes roughly 2.5 hours. We pump the juice from the press into two different holding tanks through 3" hoses using an air compressor... one is referred to as "free run" juice, which is the juice that the press squeezes out up to 600 millibars of pressure. Once we hit the 600 mark, we shut the valve to the free run tank and send the >600mbar juice to the "press" tank.

(above)This is the area where we load the grapes into the press... on the left is the sorting line for reds, and on the right half of the picture is where the press is located, underneath the ladder, which is where we stand to help get the fruit through the funnel. Ill get some better pics up shortly.


Once all of the juice is pressed, we make our first additions, which always include some sulfur and Lysozyme, which work with the eachother to inhibit bacteria, or as I like to say, prevent funky stuff from happening. This is very standard in all winemaking, both recreational and commercial. Within a few days the wine will be inoculated with yeast and begin fermentation. The grapes have come a long way to get to this point, and are now truly embarking on their journey to becoming wine.