There are crazy times in a winery. By far the craziest is harvest, but it is closely followed by the process of getting the wine into bottles. I really like to see the winery in full scale production. I tried to sneak into Maysara today to return the plates and forks that I'd stolen (inadvertently) when we did the Habitat Fundraiser up there. Tahmiene Momtazi, the winemaker was up to her armpits in hoses and equipment, but still took the time to say hello, and answer some questions about the process. In this picture they are bottling their 3 Degrees Pinot Noir label. All of the hoses are running down a long hallway, and then connected to a truck which actually bottles the wine. There are companies that do nothing but go from winery to winery and bottle their wines. Another company supplies the bottles for the process. Another has responsibility for the labels, and yet another for the closures for the wine (in the case of Maysara, aluminum screw tops.)All of these things have to come together at the same time for the process to work effectively. There is a time crunch, because as you are finishing up the bottling process, the harvest is sneaking up right behind you. Most smaller wineries do not have enough room to store last year's wine and this years. They have to get last year's into the bottle, and then get the bottles off to storage. By the way, in our area the vast majority of that storage is provided by Catholic Monks who converted from book binding to wine storage at an amazingly blessed time.
For the starting wines in the line up Tahmiene simply pumps them from the oak barrels into the stainless steel tanks and then out the hall way to the bottling truck. For the most expensive wines they will do the impossible--raise the full barrels up to the top of the gigantic stainless steel tanks and gently load one by one. It's gentler on the wine, but can be treacherous for the winemaker. Tahmiene had been run over by a falling wine barrel during a recent bottling and all she could think to do was try and save the wine! She was having a heck of a day when we were up there. First the bottling truck had to reschedule, then the closures didn't arrive on time, then she was run over by a barrel. Tahmiene had a friend point out to her that it was always the bottling of the red wines that got her in trouble, never the whites. Not sure what to make of that.
Still, she looked a lot better than her dad. Moe had recently had a beam fall on his little finger and smash it. As a woodworker, it's the kind of accident that I have nightmares about. Sometimes I'll wake up from the middle of a dream frantically pulling my hands out from some machine or other. I like my hands, and I'd like to keep them attached to my body. So I'm sending prayers of healing to Moe and to Tahmiene this week. They are making such beautiful wines in an eccologically sustainable way and that is wonderful. So I hope they are kept safe from harm (or more harm anyway.)
If you want to see me cut off something or other, I'll be working down at Wednesday Wines this Saturday afternoon showing different way to use old wine barrels to make craft projects. At least if these barrels fall on me, they're empty.