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Last Saturday was crush. I know that I have said this for the last 3 years, but this was the best one EVER!!!!
As usual, crush began weeks ago. I had to spend time maintaining and cleaning equipment, cleaning tanks, and attending to the boat load of details prior to crush that were on my checklist.
On Thursday, people began to arrive. My SIL/BIL and Uncle (from Georgia), My nephew (from Virginia), and my good friends (from Florida) all came up. Thursday evening was spent on the checklist, getting things set up and also picking up some beer.
This year, I wanted to protect my inventory of wine and also reduce the impact of hangovers. To this end, I stocked my keg-o-rator with Sierra Nevada IPA and also Stella Artois. This really seemed to do the trick. The Stella was a big hit.
Friday was grape pick up day. This involves picking up the rental truck and running about 35 miles to my supplier. I like to have folks come with me on this to keep me company and also to have them feel more of the whole experience. This year, seven of us ended up going.
It took about 3.5 hours to get loaded which is typical since I always need to wait for a loading bay. Once loaded, some of the folks went over to the Italian market across the street. Some went to the Hungarian Center of Meat about 10 minutes away. The rest of us hauled the grapes back to the winery.
** A note on my supplier.. My supplier is Corrado's. They absolutely out did themselves this year. They went above and beyond the call of duty and their prices were still lower than any other vendor in my area. As a person not at all affiliated with them, let me just say that if you live anywhere close to the NJ area you owe it to yourself to check them out!!!
Once I got back to the house with the load of grapes, I continued working on completing my checklist and had it "done and dusted" by 2pm. This was the first time that I literally had nothing to do the night before crush. If you can believe this, I spent the evening worrying about not having anything to worry about. It just seemed like it was going all too smoothly.
As a surprise, my friends that went to the Italian market came back loaded with all sorts of goodies. They informed me that they were taking over my kitchen and that dinner was being supplied by them. They ended up making up platters of meats and cheeses, tomatoes with 2 kinds of mutz, artichoke/spinach stuffed mushrooms, and home made pizza 4 ways! This was far better then my plan to order pizza. We all ate very well, and had a great time. I called the evening at 10pm so that everyone could get a good night's rest.
Saturday was crush day. After struggling to get some sleep, I got up around 5:30, put on some coffee, enjoyed a cup, and watched the sun rise. There is nothing like having 30 minutes of peace and quite before things get active.
After coffee, I started things off by filling my press with whole clusters of chardonnay. I decided to try out the whole-cluster technique that had worked so well on my past 2 Rieslings on this year's chardonnay. Just toss (into the press) the uncrushed, undestemmed, and otherwise unmolested grapes and apply steady, gentle pressure. This takes a long time (it takes pressure and time to make a gem). Getting this started early was best.
Just as soon as I had the press loaded, latched, and dialed to 50 bars of pressure, the crew began showing up. I had them jump onto the sorting line in the truck and things moved very quickly.
We had the grapes sorted, crushed, and dumped into the primary vats by 12:30. This was a new record. What is typical is to finish around 2 or 3pm. I again got that feeling that things were running to smoothly.
What really sped us up was that some of the grape varietals were amazingly clean. I find that the grapes from California usually have leaves and other stuff that needs to be picked out. The old vine zinfandel and the ruby cab were so clean that they could go straight to the press. This REALLY cut down on the amount of time.
We had everything cleaned and rinsed down by 1pm. This is normally where we break for lunch. Getting people to the tables was hard in the past. Most folks simply do not want to stop. This year this was not a problem since we were all but finished.
The food at crush is truly a group effort. Most everyone brings a dish. For lunch we had meatballs, sausage, European style ribs, perogies, shrimp/orzo salad, and veggie stew (just to name a few). As usual, my cousin Matt came with 2 kegs of his homebrew (simply wonderful).
After lunch, we gathered around the tent for some sipping, singing, and general good times. As is tradition, we inducted a new member of the purple foot club. We collected the orphan grapes (those few grapes that are rolling around in the bottom of a sorted lug) and have someone stomp them the old fashioned way.
This year was my Aunt Kathy's turn. It was hysterical! Kudos to her for being such a good sport.
Then came a nice surprise. My SIL, Mary, wrote a song for this year's crush. She is very talented and also classically trained. Everyone really enjoyed it and gave her much applause at the end. A recording of it is up on soundcloud. Here is the link if you want to give it a listen...
https://soundcloud.com/mary-gowing-1/heyhoherewego-by-mary-hill-gowing
For dinner, out came the more traditional Hungarian foods and we ate like royalty!! Goulash, Paprikas, and Lecho, just to name a few. One of the folks brought a HUGE box of Italian pastries just jam packed with cannoli and other delights.
We stuffed ourselves and then waddled back over to the tent for more sipping and good times.
The day broke up around 11pm where little by little folks wandered off back home. What few remained moved in doors for the after party which broke up around 2am. I finally Got to bed around 3am.
Sometimes things just simply run abnormally smooth. Even the weather was perfect. We had good cloud cover to keep folks cool and just as we finished crushing, the sun came out. It simply was one of those years. I am now having my usual "post crush day" depression. All of that work, planning, and effort, and now it is all over.
.. still.. there is only 365 days until the next crush!!!
Here are a few photos...
As usual, crush began weeks ago. I had to spend time maintaining and cleaning equipment, cleaning tanks, and attending to the boat load of details prior to crush that were on my checklist.
On Thursday, people began to arrive. My SIL/BIL and Uncle (from Georgia), My nephew (from Virginia), and my good friends (from Florida) all came up. Thursday evening was spent on the checklist, getting things set up and also picking up some beer.
This year, I wanted to protect my inventory of wine and also reduce the impact of hangovers. To this end, I stocked my keg-o-rator with Sierra Nevada IPA and also Stella Artois. This really seemed to do the trick. The Stella was a big hit.
Friday was grape pick up day. This involves picking up the rental truck and running about 35 miles to my supplier. I like to have folks come with me on this to keep me company and also to have them feel more of the whole experience. This year, seven of us ended up going.
It took about 3.5 hours to get loaded which is typical since I always need to wait for a loading bay. Once loaded, some of the folks went over to the Italian market across the street. Some went to the Hungarian Center of Meat about 10 minutes away. The rest of us hauled the grapes back to the winery.
** A note on my supplier.. My supplier is Corrado's. They absolutely out did themselves this year. They went above and beyond the call of duty and their prices were still lower than any other vendor in my area. As a person not at all affiliated with them, let me just say that if you live anywhere close to the NJ area you owe it to yourself to check them out!!!
Once I got back to the house with the load of grapes, I continued working on completing my checklist and had it "done and dusted" by 2pm. This was the first time that I literally had nothing to do the night before crush. If you can believe this, I spent the evening worrying about not having anything to worry about. It just seemed like it was going all too smoothly.
As a surprise, my friends that went to the Italian market came back loaded with all sorts of goodies. They informed me that they were taking over my kitchen and that dinner was being supplied by them. They ended up making up platters of meats and cheeses, tomatoes with 2 kinds of mutz, artichoke/spinach stuffed mushrooms, and home made pizza 4 ways! This was far better then my plan to order pizza. We all ate very well, and had a great time. I called the evening at 10pm so that everyone could get a good night's rest.
Saturday was crush day. After struggling to get some sleep, I got up around 5:30, put on some coffee, enjoyed a cup, and watched the sun rise. There is nothing like having 30 minutes of peace and quite before things get active.
After coffee, I started things off by filling my press with whole clusters of chardonnay. I decided to try out the whole-cluster technique that had worked so well on my past 2 Rieslings on this year's chardonnay. Just toss (into the press) the uncrushed, undestemmed, and otherwise unmolested grapes and apply steady, gentle pressure. This takes a long time (it takes pressure and time to make a gem). Getting this started early was best.
Just as soon as I had the press loaded, latched, and dialed to 50 bars of pressure, the crew began showing up. I had them jump onto the sorting line in the truck and things moved very quickly.
We had the grapes sorted, crushed, and dumped into the primary vats by 12:30. This was a new record. What is typical is to finish around 2 or 3pm. I again got that feeling that things were running to smoothly.
What really sped us up was that some of the grape varietals were amazingly clean. I find that the grapes from California usually have leaves and other stuff that needs to be picked out. The old vine zinfandel and the ruby cab were so clean that they could go straight to the press. This REALLY cut down on the amount of time.
We had everything cleaned and rinsed down by 1pm. This is normally where we break for lunch. Getting people to the tables was hard in the past. Most folks simply do not want to stop. This year this was not a problem since we were all but finished.
The food at crush is truly a group effort. Most everyone brings a dish. For lunch we had meatballs, sausage, European style ribs, perogies, shrimp/orzo salad, and veggie stew (just to name a few). As usual, my cousin Matt came with 2 kegs of his homebrew (simply wonderful).
After lunch, we gathered around the tent for some sipping, singing, and general good times. As is tradition, we inducted a new member of the purple foot club. We collected the orphan grapes (those few grapes that are rolling around in the bottom of a sorted lug) and have someone stomp them the old fashioned way.
This year was my Aunt Kathy's turn. It was hysterical! Kudos to her for being such a good sport.
Then came a nice surprise. My SIL, Mary, wrote a song for this year's crush. She is very talented and also classically trained. Everyone really enjoyed it and gave her much applause at the end. A recording of it is up on soundcloud. Here is the link if you want to give it a listen...
https://soundcloud.com/mary-gowing-1/heyhoherewego-by-mary-hill-gowing
For dinner, out came the more traditional Hungarian foods and we ate like royalty!! Goulash, Paprikas, and Lecho, just to name a few. One of the folks brought a HUGE box of Italian pastries just jam packed with cannoli and other delights.
We stuffed ourselves and then waddled back over to the tent for more sipping and good times.
The day broke up around 11pm where little by little folks wandered off back home. What few remained moved in doors for the after party which broke up around 2am. I finally Got to bed around 3am.
Sometimes things just simply run abnormally smooth. Even the weather was perfect. We had good cloud cover to keep folks cool and just as we finished crushing, the sun came out. It simply was one of those years. I am now having my usual "post crush day" depression. All of that work, planning, and effort, and now it is all over.
.. still.. there is only 365 days until the next crush!!!
Here are a few photos...
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