I was up at the crack of dawn this morning. When the sun started to stream into the valley I was already up at Couer de Terre watching the last of the fog roll away. I have a new ritual when I arrive at the winery. It's called punch down. To do a punch down you grab one of the plunger looking devices that is attached to a four foot long handle. Once the
yeast has been added to the grapes and fermentation is going a crust starts to form on the top of the bin. You have to take the plunger and push it through the crust and down to the bottom of the bin. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The cake-like crust can be almost a foot thick and practically impossible to push down. And remember, this is where winemakers die. The juice is giving off CO2 as it ferments, and if you inhale enough of that you go face first into the bin. Scott has now reminded me several times to be careful, especially when we have dozens of fermenters all going at the same time.
yeast has been added to the grapes and fermentation is going a crust starts to form on the top of the bin. You have to take the plunger and push it through the crust and down to the bottom of the bin. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The cake-like crust can be almost a foot thick and practically impossible to push down. And remember, this is where winemakers die. The juice is giving off CO2 as it ferments, and if you inhale enough of that you go face first into the bin. Scott has now reminded me several times to be careful, especially when we have dozens of fermenters all going at the same time.Next up is taking the juice's temperature. Mostly Scott tells me we're looking to see if the fermentation takes off out of control, and a very high temperature would be an indication of that. Once the yeast are introduced the mix gets hot. You can feel the heat when you stand next to the bins in the morning. You can also smell them. It's starting to smell like wine, with that beautiful, yeasty, musty aroma that I love. 
You take the temperature of the juice with a three foot long metal thermometer. The juice that the thermometer is in in the photo to the right has not started fermenting yet. It's been in a cold soak for about three days. Today we brought it up to temperature, and then added the yeast. Tomorrow the temperature will be up in the 80's.
You take the temperature of the juice with a three foot long metal thermometer. The juice that the thermometer is in in the photo to the right has not started fermenting yet. It's been in a cold soak for about three days. Today we brought it up to temperature, and then added the yeast. Tomorrow the temperature will be up in the 80's. The next step in punch down is to check the specific gravity. I asked Scott what this is. The hydrometer is calibrated to read zero in water. Anything with more sugar that water will give you a more buoyant reading. The wine will
actually have a negative specific gravity once it has produced alcohol. To get the juice sample you take a strainer and push it down into the crust until it begins to fill with juice. Then you dip a cup into the strainer to grab some of the juice. The liquid is poured into a tall tube and the hydrometer is placed into the liquid and swirled.
Before fermentation has begun the numbers are larger. In the photo below you can see that the specific gravity is reading 22. As fermentation gets going that number will be cut in half in as little as 24 hours. It's amazing how quickly fermentation takes off, and how dramatically the juice changes taste, smell and texture and color as the process goes forward.
Before fermentation has begun the numbers are larger. In the photo below you can see that the specific gravity is reading 22. As fermentation gets going that number will be cut in half in as little as 24 hours. It's amazing how quickly fermentation takes off, and how dramatically the juice changes taste, smell and texture and color as the process goes forward.
The final step is punch down is, of course, cleaning up. You grab a rag, spray some alcohol on it and clean the inside of the bin. Once that's all done, and the data for each bin has been recorded, you cover up the bin again. Punch down has to be done every eight hours. Scott's doing it late tonight, I'll be there to do it first thing tomorrow morning.
We are headed for some long days. We have two vineyards sending us fruit tomorrow, and Scott is going to have his own crew harvest the last of the estate Pinot Noir. We also have to get three more fermenters up to temperature and add yeast to them. I got the the winery a little after 7:00 this morning and left around 9:00. Tomorrow should be later.
A wine guy stopped in today to talk. He wanted to know if I was the winemaker. Good lord. I couldn't look more like a custodian if I went to the theater and had them costume me. I'm wearing my construction orange rubber overalls with work boots, and a tattered, old, stained grey tee shirt. I'm also knee deep in dirty hoses that I'm steam cleaning. Really? Is this what a winemaker would look like? And then it occurs to me. Yes, this is what winemakers do most of the time. The idea of making wine is so romantic. The reality of making wine is constantly cleaning and just a whole lot of very hard work. This experience is going to make me much more thankful for the wine that I drink, for the hands that have planted the vines, for the hands that have pruned the vines and trained them up the trellises. I'll be thankful for the hard working people who harvested the grapes, and those that did the crush. I'll be thankful for those who did the punch downs and actually made the wine.
I did sneak outside around 5:00 tonight, and the sun was starting to set and the moon was rising. Just another beautiful moment in the Couer de Terre Vineyard. It was nice to see the sun!