About seven hours from now I'll be headed back to Coeur de Terre. Tomorrow is the day that we will be harvesting most of their estate fruit. Today was all about getting ready for tomorrow. It started with a chemistry lesson. I feel a bit like a trained monkey doing the chemistry of wine making. Scott is very good about explaining what he wants done, and I can do it, but I have no idea what I am doing. 
We start in the barrel room where the three fermenters that we filled with de-stemmed Pinot Noir are resting. Scott does not want them to start the fermentation process yet. The cold soaking allows more of the color and flavors to be transferred to the juice, than going right into fermentation. He is keeping that process at bay in several ways. First of all he is keeping the bins cool. Also, he has not yet added any yeast to get the process started. He also keeps a level of Co2 on the top of the bins. That is a lump of dry ice sitting on top of one of the bins in the photo on the left. The mist that flows from the ice reminds me of the fog that is settled onto the valley floor as I head to the vineyard each morning. Today is kind of a low pressure training for what we will be doing tomorrow. Scott wants the specific gravity of each bin checked. You do this by placing a hydrometer (a glass tube with a bulb on the bottom) into a solution of the juice from the bin. You record the number that is level with the top of the liquid and this is your specific gravity. Don't ask me what a specific gravity is, I don't know. We also measure the temperature. Before any of this is done we punch down the materials in the bid, pushing the grapes that have accumulated at the top down into the other liquid. Then we take a rag spritzed with alcohol and clean off the inside of the bin. After all of that is done you grab a few chunks of dry ice and throw them on top, then cover the bin and move on. Today there are three bins in the barrel room. Tomorrow there will be dozens.
Late in the day Martin is out in the vineyard setting up the bins in which the picked fruit will be collected tomorrow. The harvesting crew arrives around six AM. We will start processing the fruit around 8:30. We will finish up sometime Saturday morning. Scott is going to let the upper part of the vineyard stay on the vine a bit longer. He had to schedule the harvest crew three days ago. I'm excited to see how everything works. It's going to be a very, very long day. I doubt I'll get a chance to write anything tomorrow. I want to get out to the vineyard early so I can get some images of the grapes being harvested.
I'm the last one out of the cellar again tonight. As I leave I strike up a conversation with the welder that Scott has hired to fix some machinery. We chew the fat for a while and then, suddenly I am very cold. It's amazing how quickly these vineyard hillsides loose heat when the sun goes down. That is part of what makes this such a perfect place to grow Pinot Noir. As I go down the hill Scott is out with Jack, the vineyard dog, shutting down the propane cannons. It's suddenly quiet and peaceful. I leave with a certain amount of sadness, but with a lot of excitement about tomorrow's harvest.
At lunch I go down to one of my favorite parts of the vineyard. It is a picnic table that sits right next to the irrigation pond. The colors are beautiful today. I've learned that there is a slight click right before the propane cannons go off. If you listen carefully you can cover your ears right before they go off. I've thought that this would be a great place to bring Robin and some friends for a picnic. We'll wait until after harvest is complete, because those cannons are loud.
After lunch I head back to the cellar to clean another of the huge wooden fermenters. First I scrub it down with a base solution, then rinse it with warm water, treat it with an acidic solution and rinse it again with warm water. It takes about three hours to finish. The pump is giving me problems, so after I am done I take apart the plug and discover one the of the wires has come undone. While I'm at it I fix another problem with the control wiring. I'm honing my mechanical skills doing this gig. Late in the day Martin is out in the vineyard setting up the bins in which the picked fruit will be collected tomorrow. The harvesting crew arrives around six AM. We will start processing the fruit around 8:30. We will finish up sometime Saturday morning. Scott is going to let the upper part of the vineyard stay on the vine a bit longer. He had to schedule the harvest crew three days ago. I'm excited to see how everything works. It's going to be a very, very long day. I doubt I'll get a chance to write anything tomorrow. I want to get out to the vineyard early so I can get some images of the grapes being harvested.