Machine harvesting do's and don't's

DO follow behind and pick up what gets missed - the machine is not perfect and every little grape helps

DON'T follow too close behind or you'll miss the fall foliage and the fresh air in the vineyard

DON'T let the picked grapes sit too long after harvesting - their close contact with the leaves and stems can impart an unwanted 'steminess' to the juice

DO sort quickly, removing as many leaves and stems as possible, as well as any other M.O.G. (Material Other than Grapes)

DO run the grapes through the Crusher/De-stemmer to further eliminate M.O.G.

Finally, DON'T machine harvest unless you are under time pressure! Hand-picking is usually best.

Harvest mascots

Since I've been working at a winery I am now very much at home with nature. Snake in the vineyard - big deal. Bugs and worms on the sorting table - no problem. Recently there have been some cute animals wandering into the winery.

First day of harvest - this guy jumped in:

The frog eventually hopped out when he saw how busy we were bringing in the first juice of the harvest.

And the other day, this pretty lady flew in:

Sarah, our intern from Germany, caught this Hummingbird and set it free.

Gewurz me

Last week we harvested the first block of Gewurztraminer from our Josef vineyard up in Dresden, NY.  For the first picking of Gewurztraminer we focus on capturing crisp, natural acidity in the grapes. Usually 2 weeks later we will harvest the rest, giving it time to develop more rich, ripe flavors and higher natural sugar content.

The Magdalena block will hang another week or so before we harvest it:

Gewurz grapes are my favorite wine grapes to eat, so I don't mind the fact that the sorting takes a long time. I eat my way through it. Sometimes you just have to sample the grapes to make sure the bunch is good enough to go into the press. If it's underripe, we reject it. Good grapes in, good wine out.

Dancing in September

 
It's the most wonderful time of the year - not Christmas - Harvest! 3 weeks earlier than last year, we started picking. First up was the Chardonnay for sparkling wine. We usually do this first to capture the natural acidity that is so necessary for wine that is meant to sparkle. Because of the warm spring and summer we had to start before Labor Day. Starting Friday and throughout the Labor Day weekend we picked from an old section of the HJW vineyard that hadn't bore fruit since 2003. We got about 7 tons in total from those vines! I spent the first day preparing for the grapes by getting the presses cleaned and ready. We weren't totally prepared since we'd just come off 3 weeks of bottling. So it was a bit of a triathlon to get everything ready for harvest. We had a very productive (if long) weekend but I didn't mind because I am so excited for harvest! Stay tuned for more as we gradually start bringing in the 2010 vintage.

HJW in Argentina

After a long journey from the Finger Lakes to Long Island to Argentina, it was about time for Peter and me to drink the wine we made during the 2009 harvest at Hermann J. Wiemer. In October we had harvested Gewurztraminer from the HJW vineyard at Wiemer, the original and oldest planting on the property. We had separated out the botrytis-affected bunches and used only the shriveliest bunches for our wine, fermenting it and yielding just one 375mL bottle. It was ready by the end of October, so it´s been aging (and traveling) for about 3 months.

When we took it out of the fridge today we noticed the sediment in the bottle right away. When we first poured it there were some bubbles, so we worried that it had started to re-ferment. But the nose was developed and very pretty, with white flower, orange, grapefruit, and a touch of botrytis spice and minerality. On the palate it had a luscious mouthfeel, complexity, and a really good integration of sweetness, acidity, body, and alcohol. The flavor reminded me of honeyed grapefruit and the finish was crisp. It tasted very different from when we first tried it in early November; the 3 months of bottle aging definitely served it well. We were so excited by the result! We are so proud that we made a good wine. If only we had been able to make some more. Maybe next harvest...

Danke!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Oskar, Fred, and Maressa - and Tim and Sandy too - for welcoming me to their team at Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard. I had a fantastic experience and its end is bittersweet. I learned a ton about winemaking, the industry, and myself. I met some incredible people and had a great time working with them - thanks also to the interns, sorters, tasting room staff, and the other essential players. Hermann truly left a wonderful group in place to carry out his legacy and I am honored to have been a part of it. As I move on to other experiences I will think fondly of the HJW crew and hope to have the chance to work with them again in the future.

You guys rock!
-Melanie

Spotlight: Every Man Joe

As I say goodbye to my friends at Hermann J. Wiemer, I dedicate this post to the guy who was there at the beginning and remains at the end - Joe. Every-man Joe was super helpful to us interns when it came to knowing how things are done at the winery, since he has been working here since March, and in general, since he worked a harvest in Oregon last year. Joe could operate every forklift, tractor, truck, press - you name it. He cleaned like a champ, even though his wetsuit was never sufficient to keep him dry. On a late harvest night we would often fight over the last slice of pepperoni pizza. When Peter and I would propose a bet to keep everyone going into the night shift, Joe was always good for a wager. He was also good for a chat on the labeling line, in the field, and on the sorting table. Hope our paths cross again in the winemaking future, Joe!

Harvesting Roots

Thought the harvest was over, didn't you?! The last 2 days we spent harvesting rootstock in the Wiemer nursery. Grafting rootstock is a big part of Wiemer's business. Vineyards around the country source their rootstock from us, and this is a continuation of Hermann's legacy. Not only was he a pioneer in bringing Riesling to the Finger Lakes, he was also responsible for supplying the Finger Lakes and other areas with quality grafted vines. Now for a brief wine geek history: in the late 19th century European vineyards were wiped out by the root louse, phylloxera. Native to American rootstock, our vines are resistant to it. But, European grapes (vitis vinifera) make better wines, so we and the rest of the wine-making world now use grafted vines of vitis vinifera on American rootstock.

Grafting at Wiemer takes place over the winter, and then the grafted plants go into the ground in the spring so they can develop a root system. In late fall (now) the young roots are harvested and then distributed throughout the country for new vineyards or replacements. Harvesting these little plants is what I imagine harvesting Cabbage Patch Kids would be like (minus the tractor and plow).

So the tractor/plow pulls up all the rootstems and then we follow it to collect and bundle them. Funny enough, a lot of the plants have 1 or 2 shoots already, so they look kind of like the ridiculous antlers that the Grinch puts on his dog before he rides into town to steal Christmas:

These are the types of things that go through my mind when I am doing fieldwork. Anyway, we were lucky to have 2 gorges days of sunshine for this harvest. We also had 3 Mennonite boys helping us; I wondered yesterday why they weren't in school, but I learned that the Mennonites are only schooled through 8th grade. After that, they just work and get married and have babies, or whatever. Fascinating.

A noble end to the harvest

This week we finished harvest by scouring the vineyards for botrytis. We had left certain bunches on the vines to allow the botrytis to develop so it could be saved for Bunch Select Late Harvest Riesling (a TBA style). Maressa and I trolled Magdalena and Josef to collect the last shrivelly bunches, and then the rest of us spent a couple days sorting for the best stuff. We used the old Rotapress to press the bunches, and the thick syrupy juice tasted so good. This is going to be a great dessert wine.

As the harvest has now officially ended, I can say that I am really excited for the 2009 vintage to come out next year and in the years that follow; we brought in some beautiful fruit, and the juice and now-fermenting wines have been tasting amazing. So excited!

Blueberries?

Over the weekend we harvested the last of the reds - Cabernet Franc, Lemberger, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. After seeing all these grapes I can now appreciate all the pretty colors that appear in red wine making. The berries are blue upon picking...

...and turn purple as they go through fermentation. The juice goes from virtually clear to pink to red, depending on the amount of skin contact and whether the fermentation occurs on or off the skins (rose vs. red wine). Here, I'm punching Cabernet Franc that is fermenting on the skins:

Punching the reds is a great way to warm up when you are freezing from sorting and cleaning outside. In terms of snacking, the Lemberger grapes were my favorite - I could eat those any day. Would be a healthier alternative to donuts :)

Sounds of the Sorting Table

As you now know, sorting the grapes before they go into the crusher/de-stemmer and/or the press is an important part of the winemaking process at Wiemer.  You can imagine that we have bonded over this process. Following is a little sampling of the sounds of the sorting table:

- Oskar breaking into random song
- Peter humming tunes he makes up in his head
- Alex practicing his V's
- Political debate followed by Maressa shouting "No politics at the sorting table!"
- Cries of "Wait! I heard a rock!"
- Random trivia on world geography
- Bets made over baseball scores, number of boxes of grapes picked, whether Tim and Sandy will bring us donuts, timing of the arrival of grapes from our 3 vineyard sites, and timing for Fred to say, "I think we're in good shape here," which means we can go home to bed :)

Cheers to the Sorters!

The Tresterband

The Tresterband is a machine that pushes grape refuse up and away, into a bin placed strategically next to it. It is particularly useful for catching grape skins when we clean the presses and stems when the grapes go through the crusher/de-stemmer.  Peter has said in the past that The Tresterband is overrated; he thinks the job can easily be done by man using a shovel. I think the Tresterband is pretty cool, and why kill your back shoveling the stuff when the Tresterband can do it so easily for you? Well today I tried to prove to Peter (not so much on purpose) that the Tresterband rocks - I miscalculated the amount of skins still left in the press, so when we moved the Tresterband away and turned the press, a whole mess of skins came out that had to be shoveled out from under the press. This job took both Peter and me, yet he still insisted that the Tresterband is overrated. Maybe I better screw up again tomorrow so he can see how old shoveling out from under the press gets :)

Spotlight: Alex, the German intern

This past week we were sad because Alex went back to Germany. So this post is dedicated to him. Alex is studying at the Geisenheim, and his family owns Stauffer Winery (www.weingutstauffer.de). We had a lovely bottle of his the other night made from the Fruhburgunder grape. It is a cousin of Pinot Noir so it had similar characteristics on the palate and a nose of cherry and black tea that I loved.

One of Alex's jobs was to clean the presses every day - he would often get inside them to do a thorough job. The presses are German-made and have their commands in German, so who better for the job?

My favorite thing about Alex was that when he ran out of groceries he would stop at Dunkin Donuts in the morning to load up for the day - 3 donuts for breakfast and 3 donuts for lunch. Sometimes he would throw in a banana or apple and a Red Bull. Wunderbar! (Pronounced 'voon da bah,' means "Wonderful," and is my favorite German word.) Miss you, Predator!

Great rot

This week has been busy with sorting, pressing, and racking Riesling. After sorting out the 'bad' stuff - bunches affected by botrytis, or noble rot - we've then been sorting through that to find the 'best.' The best botrytis bunches are the shriveliest and fuzziest because they have the most concentrated juice and will make the best dessert wine. This is the same sorting process that Peter and I went through for our Gewurz, which I'm happy to say is finally fermenting, a week after inoculation! To get it going, we simply added some already-fermenting 2009 Gewurz to our juice. After no action, we transferred it to a clear bottle, gave it a good shake, and let it sit overnight. Next day, we could see bubbles and knew that fermentation had begun. We are so excited! Now we just have to decide when to stop the fermentation based on alcohol and sugar levels. Stay tuned!

As for Wiemer's 2009 TBA Riesling, there is still more sorting to do.

Nice rack

Winemaking is so glamorous. We pick grapes, sort through them to eliminate rot and other bad stuff, put them into a press that extracts the juice, and then run the juice through hoses and into tanks to settle out and blend before fermentation. Pre-fermentation, racking is the process of running off the good juice from the solids that have settled out. Once the juice is solid-free, it goes back into a tank to be fermented into wine. What I've found is that this process involves a lot of cleaning - cleaning presses, cleaning hoses, cleaning tanks, cleaning buckets, cleaning the floor. Every time we go through this process we clean for the next turn. On an average harvest day we may go through this process 2 or 3 times. Joe was the lucky guy on this day who got to climb into the huge stainless steel tank to clean it. I hope I get the job next time.

It snowed through the night too!

But there is definitely something to the lake's moderating effect on temperature. As I got closer to Wiemer from where I live in Dundee, 5 miles west of Seneca lake, the snow was gone.

It snowed today

I have no other words.

Magdalena - what a hottie

Today we picked some Sauvignon Blanc (yes, we have 2 rows - who knew??) from Wiemer's Magdalena vineyard, which is the warmest vineyard site by about 5 degrees. Not that we could tell, because it was only about 40 degrees today. Tomorrow it's not supposed to get out of the 30's and there is snow in the forecast for tomorrow night! Thankfully I got out of work a little early today and was able to go shopping for warm clothes so I'll be ready for picking and sorting in freezing temperatures. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get a dull pair of shears so I can avoid "picking" another finger - my left pinky is still throbbing from today's mishap. Three of us have mistaken fingers for grapes in the last week, but we consider these minor injuries sacrifices to Bacchus, god of wine!

Winemaker-in-Training

I mentioned in an earlier post that Peter and I are making a mini-cuvee of TBA Gewurz. The process is going great so far - after letting the grapes sit on the botrytis skins overnight, we found this old-school basket press that belonged to Hermann and used it to press off the juice. We wrapped the grapes in cheesecloth first to filter out the juice, and then we pressed it twice. We were happy to get about a liter of juice, almost filling this gorgeous magnum bottle. We then let the juice settle out for a few days, and last night we siphoned off the good juice and left behind the murky sludge. This was not an easy task, and we still have some sludge left so we are letting it settle out again today before we ferment the batch. (Btw, the juice tastes amazing, even the sludge, so if it ends up not being crystal clear we are confident the wine will still taste good!) Over the next few days I'll be keeping my eye on the recycling bucket to look out for a couple of 375 mL bottles, since we're going to need them soon. In the meantime we have some tough decisions to make, like how long to ferment, how much sugar and alcohol we want to have leftover in the finished wine, and what to call it!

Happy Columbus Day

I've been delinquent in my posting. It's mainly because Columbus Day weekend is one of the busiest at the winery. Tons of people come to wine taste and see the beautiful fall foliage, which is starting to look really pretty. My family came to visit me, which was awesome! They brought the puppies and we had a blast. I had them try all the wines we have available for tasting and I now know everyone's favorite. Since I worked all weekend I just had a short time with them, but they got to sample the finest wine in the Finger Lakes and the best of Watkins Glen take-out: pizza and Chinese.

The days are starting to blend together a bit as I go from full days in the tasting room to nights on the production line. Temperatures have dropped, and last night on the sorting table it felt like we were sifting through little grape-shaped ice cubes. Tonight we rigged up a 40ft tarp over the presspad so we could sort into the presses without the grapes getting wet from the rain. We had a great system going and went through the batch pretty quickly. Go team! Then we blind tasted a Riesling from Idaho that was surprisingly good. It's going to be intense like this for the rest of October, but at least I know there's a lot of great wine in my past, present, and future. Hope everyone had a nice holiday!