I have totally missed harvest at Coeur de Terre. Of course I'm somewhat amazed that it could take place without me! I dropped by to leave a copy of
The Theology of Wine for Scott and Lisa Neal. I'm excited for them to see the book, because it would not have been possible without them, and it features so many photos of their beautiful estate.
I wondered downstairs from the tasting room to see what what happening in the wine making area. Shane was working hard doing punch downs and cleaning (most of what you do as a winemaker as far as I can tell). His wife was visiting him. It is probably the only way they see each other during the harvest season. I'm sure he has been putting in some very long hours in the past few weeks. They are also doing a pump over of some new juice. You can see the end of the hose returning the juice to the fermentor in the photo above. You can tell it's still grape juice by the color. Once they start fermentation the juice will darken significantly.
I think I know what Shane was doing, because I did it quite a bit when I was doing my internship there. The tank above contains hot water. The juice is circulated through the tank in the coils that come out at the top and go in at the bottom. As the juice goes through it is gently heated. The juice has spent a week or so in cold storage, and they have been keeping the fermentation process at bay during that time. Now they will warm up the juice, add some yeast food, and inoculate the juice with yeast. Some wineries do not add outside yeast, they simply let nature take it's course. At Coeur de Terre, they like to select the yeast to better control flavor. At Maysara they allow native yeasts to do the work. It's one of a million choices that a winemaker must make in the long process of creating a beautiful wine.
It was such a beautiful day that after I talked with Shane I headed up the hill to visit the new plantings. The photo at the top of the page is the view of the vineyard from up there. There is also this cool pattern of the new vines peaking up above all of the wires of the trellis system that I wanted to get. Not sure this is the one I was looking for, but I like the patterns, and the way the vine has tendrils curled around the wires to secure it as it grows. It's a beautiful time for a walk in a vineyard. Go out this weekend and find a place to experience the beauty of fall in the Willamette Valley. Who knows, we may run into one another.
