Harvest is over!

The reason I haven't blogged for the past 2 months was because of a little thing in the wine industry we like to call "harvest." Harvest 2009 at Merryvale was quite different than Harvest 2008 at Rosenblum. At Rosenblum, there were two lab interns that took alternating shifts so I worked 10 hour days, Mon-Thurs, coming in occasionally on Fridays for some OT. At Merryvale, during the peak of harvest, I worked 7AM-7:30PM Mon-Fri and put in close to full days on Sundays. It was also a more physically demanding job, as I was doing things like yeast additions which required lugging buckets upon buckets of juice up several flights of stairs. If we were lucky, we got help. In addition to this harvest making me stronger both physically and mentally, I also learned a lot more about the different aspects of wine production. Plus, you have to appreciate a job that makes 10 hour days look short and 8 hour days laughable.

A few pictures from harvest:

The Cellar: Ready and awaiting grapes

Our first Sauvignon Blanc grapes of harvest!


Sean, the Senior Winemaker, and Remi, the Vineyard Manager, getting ready to toast to a successful harvest

Liddy and Andrew sorting Cabernet

So this weekend, November 14-15, was the first weekend I had completely off since August. The funny thing is that once the last grapes come in and get inoculated, harvest comes to an almost screeching halt. At this point, we have a few white wines in barrels still going through slow native fermentation and the remainder of work to be done is checking red wines to see if they've completed their malolactic fermentation. Once Thanksgiving rolls around, the rest of the interns and temporary workers will be gone and we'll be left with a skeleton crew until next harvest. For me, I'll be working until Christmas, taking time off to go home for the holidays, and returning as a lab tech in January. In the off-season, I'm hoping to do a lot more sensory work and get idea of everything else that happens between harvests. It is also my intention to enroll in UC Davis Extension's Winemaking for Distance Learners Certificate Program. I'll be sending my application within the next few weeks with the intention of starting the first intro class at the beginning of January. I'm very much looking forward to being a student again! This time, a student of wine. Doesn't get much better than that.