In the coming days I will be posting a lengthy narrative, photos, and videos describing the awesome harvest we had yesterday. It was hard, back-breaking work from 4AM until well after midnight. Here's a brief synopsis of the last 24 hours:
1. This harvest could not have been possible without the help of family and friends. Ultimately, God blessed us with great weather and grapes. Let specifically thank all those who came to help:
-Dad and Jim: thank you for believing in this project and the courage to undewrite it, knowing full well that I had no idea what I was doing ;-) May this lead to a larger effort. Thanks for your hard work and organizing the crew and making us more efficient.
-Yoli, my trophy wife: you and your pitchfork saved us from being out into the wee hours of the morning crushing grapes. My wife also performed all testing of the grapes because I had no idea how they worked. She rocks.
-Jane, Shane, Hanker, Ann, Susan, Christian, Campbell, and Calvin: sorters and crushers extraordinaires. Shane and I spend more time than neceesary figuring out the calculations for the yeast. Thanks to Yoli, we were able to get the right measurements.
-My landlord Kevin: thanks for getting the a/c in and helping me with the buildout.
-All: without your help this would not have been possible!
2. We picked up the grapes in Brenham, TX around 6AM and had them at the crushpad by noon. We spent the next eight hours crushing, sorting, and filling the fermenters. From the 3,100 pounds, we ended up approx. 310 gallons of crushed grapes and juice which I divided into three lots. Shane and I inoculated the lots with yeast yesterday around midnight and by this morning (7/24) the tanks were buzzing and a thick cap had formed.
3. Tonight, I ran the final tests and performed the last punchdown. The caps are nice and thick, with lots of ruby color. We began with 22.5 Brix and we were at around 18 Brix as of 11:45PM this evening. Fermentation appears to be strong and things are progressing smoothly. I performed 5 punchdowns today.
4. Thank God we did not get me on film being chased around the vineyard by an agressive bumble bee. It was quite embarassing. Charles, the vineyard manager did a superb job of getting us packed and on our way.
I'm tired. I'll try to get photos and videos up sometime tomorrow.
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