Harvest 2012 - Week 1

The first Pinot Noir grapes for our Sparkling Wine have been handpicked on this cool September morning by our amazing Mexican crew.   And they look beautiful -- clean, evenly ripe, and with the needed acidity for Sparkling Brut.

In the early morning hours on Thursday we started unloading approximately 49 bins of fruit, or 7.8 metric tonnes from our Horse Thief Vineyard planted in 2007.   Before we started up the press all the staff gathered for a traditional toast to the new vintage, with sparkling wine of course! 

With Charles transporting the fruit from the field, Christoph and Felix running the forklifts, the fruit was fed into our membrane press and whole cluster pressed. The first run juice or Cuvee makes up 75% - 85% of our crush.   The berry remains or pomace were returned to our compost pile and the free run juice was put into stainless steel fermenters. 

We whole cluster press to get minimal skin contact as these Pinot Noir grapes are destined for our Brut Sparkling Wine. We keep all the fruit separated in these tanks, not only by vineyard, but by different sections within each vineyard, while the grapes ferment. This is to try and best preserve the unique terroir of each site.  Matt oversees it all; keeping everything organized by labeling the unique lots of fruit.

After pressing, the juice is pumped into tank to let the solids settle. This clears the juice and prepares it to be racked tomorrow. If you come and visit us, you’ll see our bins of Pinot Noir grapes lined up where our visitors usually park, where they’ll stay nice and cool in the evenings, and be close enough to continue pressing in the early hours of the morning.
Looking ahead this week we will harvest Chardonnay and a small quantity of Pinot Gris all from our Horse Thief Vineyard.  These will be used to make up the blend for our NV Brut.

Although it hasn’t been as long of a day as many we will face in the coming weeks, it has been a very exciting first week of vintage!  Welcome back to Blue Mountain vintage veterans Charles and Felix, and for first-timer Christoph, who was very much appreciated in the cellar. The Chocolate Chip Cake was delicious and appreciated during the busy day.  Thanks Jane! All in all it has been an excellent start to the 2012 Harvest.

To be continued....