Finally! 2024 Winemaking Season Begins

[crushday]

My winemaking is finally beginning this weekend. I'm working with four vineyards this year for fresh grapes. It's all but certain that grapes from more than one vineyard will be ripe enough to pick on the same day. That's exactly what is happening this year right from the gate. To add to the madness, I'm going to be at Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Saturday, September 21st as the Montana Grizzlies host Western Carolina from Cullowhee, NC for a football game. The only way I can swing it is pulling a trailer to Montana carrying three macro bins and grabbing the grapes on Sunday on my way home.

Grapes this trip, all from Red Mountain AVA but two vineyards:

55g drum of fresh chardonnay (grapes will be picked and pressed on Saturday, then placed in refrigeration)
1/2 ton of Tempranillo (grapes will be picked Sunday)
1/2 ton of Viognier (grapes will be picked Sunday)
1/2 ton Marsanne/Rousanne blend (grapes will be picked Sunday)

I'll post pictures and document the fermentation on all these wines.

 

[anthocyanin]

I am also making Tempranillo and Viognier this year, both from the same vineyard in southern Oregon picked this past weekend. Also making Pinot and Riesling from a different vineyard in the southern Willamette valley later in the season. Both are coming along nicely so far - the Viognier is fermenting at around 62F ambient, I wish I could get it a bit cooler but it would be too much of a hassle.

 

[wood1954]

I’m so jealous of you guys and the grapes you have access to. Good luck with your ferment!

 

[crushday]

Update: Leaving in the morning for Montana football - back Sunday and grabbing grapes…

Here’s my trailer loaded with bins.

 

[Garagista]

My winemaking is finally beginning this weekend. I'm working with four vineyards this year for fresh grapes. It's all but certain that grapes from more than one vineyard will be ripe enough to pick on the same day. That's exactly what is happening this year right from the gate. To add to the madness, I'm going to be at Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Saturday, September 21st as the Montana Grizzlies host Western Carolina from Cullowhee, NC for a football game. The only way I can swing it is pulling a trailer to Montana carrying three macro bins and grabbing the grapes on Sunday on my way home.

Grapes this trip, all from Red Mountain AVA but two vineyards:

55g drum of fresh chardonnay (grapes will be picked and pressed on Saturday, then placed in refrigeration)
1/2 ton of Tempranillo (grapes will be picked Sunday)
1/2 ton of Viognier (grapes will be picked Sunday)
1/2 ton Marsanne/Rousanne blend (grapes will be picked Sunday)

I'll post pictures and document the fermentation on all these wines.

Go Western Carolina! Established in 1888, it is one of the oldest universities in North Carolina. Serving the western North Carolina region, it also serves the Cherokee nation native people of the Applician mountains. In 2012, it was ranked the 14th best university in the south (which is pretty good considering Duke, Vanderbilt, Davidson, etc). In 1980, Ronnie Carr scored the first collegiate 3 point basketball goal in a game for Western Carolina. That ball is in the collegiate basketball hall of fame.

 

[crushday]

Go Western Carolina! Established in 1888, it is one of the oldest universities in North Carolina. Serving the western North Carolina region, it also serves the Cherokee nation native people of the Applician mountains. In 2012, it was ranked the 14th best university in the south (which is pretty good considering Duke, Vanderbilt, Davidson, etc). In 1980, Ronnie Carr scored the first collegiate 3 point basketball goal in a game for Western Carolina. That ball is in the collegiate basketball hall of fame.

OV... Should be a good game. I hope you can watch it on ESPN+...

 

[crushday]

Update: Yesterday might be considered the longest day of my life... I left Missoula at 5:30am, as planned. I arrived in the Tri Cities on time, as planned at 10:00 am local time. We crossed from Mountain to Pacific time at the Idaho/Montana border on Lookout Pass so total drive time was 5.5 hours.

Exiting the highway and following the prompts on my GPS was normal. I called the vineyard owner to alert him of my arrival to the area. He warned me that the road in front of the vineyard was CLOSED. He related to me that a 3000 participant Triathlon was happening today and the bike race was traveling down his road - which was closed until noon. I got within 4 tenths of a mile from the vineyard before I was halted by orange clad, sign wielding personnel asking me where I was headed. I told them I needed to cross the road and enter the driveway I pointed to. The driveway was literally a half block away. I was denied forward progress citing the danger posed to the riders. Within a few minutes a white truck with flashing lights showed up and blocked the driveway. So there I sat. I had no idea that triathlon bike racers came in so many shapes and sizes - quite interesting actually.

After retrieving the drum of Chardonnay juice, I was off to the next vineyard, eighteen miles away, to grab the Tempranillo, Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne. I arrived there at 12:30pm, a couple hours late.

Leaving the second vineyard, I decide to take the "back way" home and go over White Pass. Snoqualmie pass is on interstate 90 and has lots of traffic. The closer you get to Seattle Metro the more clogged the interstate gets. White pass is a state highway and about 30 miles longer to my house but WAY LESS traffic. I wasn't aware of all the road construction and major detour that took me approximately 20 miles off course when I made this decision. I finally got home shortly after 5pm and only two hours of daylight left.

I got everything (crusher, stainless tanks) set up for the crush, which took about an hour. Mrs. Crushday manned the pitch fork and we crushed all the grapes within an hour. My original intent was to crush the whites first and press immediately, separating the juice from the skins. But knowing I would run out of daylight, I opted to crush and store the must in a tank overnight and press the following morning. That is today, as of the time of this writing.

I'll press the whites, take measurements on everything and introduce yeast. Avante for the Tempranillo and Fresco for the whites.

A few pics:

 

[Garagista]

Fantastic story. Beautiful!

 

[Kraffty]

Always love following along with your crush stories. Quite a day.

 

[crushday]

Update: Pressed the white juice off the skins this morning. Here are the stats for all wines:

1. Tempranillo: pH 3.56, 24.2 Brix
2. Chardonnay: pH 3.35, 21 Brix
3. Viognier: pH 3.55, 24 Brix
4. Marssanne, Rosanne blend: pH 3.42, 23 Brix

I was planning on inoculating Beta in the Viognier, post fermentation but, with a pH of 3.55, I don't think I'll do that. Chardonnay will get Beta post fermentation. Tempranillo will get CH16 as a co-innoculation after first full cap. No MLB for the blend.

As an experiment, removed 10 gallons of the blend and will do a native fermentation. We will see what happens... Other whites will have Fresco yeast. Tempranillo has Avante yeast.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I was exhausted after just reading about your journey before realizing that you were going to crush same day as well!
Any acid additions planned (looking especially at the Viognier) or are you just going to go with what the vineyard gave you?

 

[crushday]

I was exhausted after just reading about your journey before realizing that you were going to crush same day as well!
Any acid additions planned (looking especially at the Viognier) or are you just going to go with what the vineyard gave you?

I’m not making any adjustments, especially on the Viognier. It’s a little low on acid and I’ve made the decision to not do MLF as that would be like taking 80 grit to a pine cabinet. I’ll age in oak and roll the dice. BTW, juice tasted amazing!

 

[anthocyanin]

I’m not making any adjustments, especially on the Viognier. It’s a little low on acid and I’ve made the decision to not do MLF as that would be like taking 80 grit to a hardwood cabinet. I’ll age in oak and roll the dice. BTW, juice tasted amazing!

Your Viognier stats came in just about the same as mine. I also did not adjust anything and am not going to do MLF, but am going for sur lie aging for body/roundness instead of oaking. It'll be the first time I've done sur lie and battonage, so it will be interesting! My Tempranillo came in at just over 25 brix, and I did drop the brix by about 1/2 point with acidulated water.

 

[Snafflebit]

I think your numbers look great. And the Viognier cluster looks nice and blushed. Happy winemaking!

 

[crushday]

Your Viognier stats came in just about the same as mine. I also did not adjust anything and am not going to do MLF, but am going for sur lie aging for body/roundness instead of oaking. It'll be the first time I've done sur lie and battonage, so it will be interesting! My Tempranillo came in at just over 25 brix, and I did drop the brix by about 1/2 point with acidulated water.

I hadn't considered sur lie and battonage. I might change my mind and follow your path. I still have lots of grapes coming this year and I'll be running low on time and energy. This hobby has become a run away train!

 

[crushday]

Who has any experience and success pressing white juice? I have a 80 liter bladder press. It look me about 3 hours to press 1T of grapes. I feel like I'm not getting all the juice and I'm fearful of crushing the sees and releasing seed tannins. There's several whole berries when I empty the press.

My output today:

Viognier produced 65 gallons of juice
Marsanne and Roussane produced 65 gallons of juice

 

[Snafflebit]

I think that is why using rice hulls is popular when pressing white grapes (it is very common to use hulls with the slipskin hybrids)
You could try fluffing up the cake with a stick and repressing.

It is just a guess, but since you are pressing whole berries, you could go to maybe 3 bar and not get the same seed tannins as you would when pressing a fermented red must.

 

[crushday]

Update on my ferment - all is going well except the 10 gallons of native ferment - no activity at all…

 

[Nebbiolo020]

Update on my ferment - all is going well except the 10 gallons of native ferment - no activity at all…

Native yeast is slow sometimes, if it never kicks off pitch yeast but give it a bit of time. It can also be insanely active and tear through a fermentation. Our 2023 cab was like that wild yeast went through fermentation in 2 days flat I mean it literally chewed through it never seen it that fast and since it was first vintage we don’t have any yeast strains inoculated into the building yet. So I know that was wild yeast.

 

[SCAndy]

I dream of buying fresh fruit some day when my schedule permits. Seems like everybody, pros included, have crazy stories about getting pick day finished without some sort of disaster. Your posts are always super educational. Keep it up!!