October 6, 2007 started out as an "iffy" day, a little sprinkly mist falling from the cloud laden sky... |
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matter what, so Jim and I headed out to the Lenne Estate Vineyard to
either help or be in the way :) This was the second harvest
for 2007, the first happened a couple of weeks earlier in a much
younger portion of the vineyard. This portion of the vineyard
just needed a little more hang time for the fruit to get the most
complex flavors that we could get. The sugar and acid levels
were perfect, the juice was scrumptious, but the tannins were not as
we wanted them (from the seeds and the skins). By giving them
the extra hang time, they would mature some more and give us
much better wine down the road. We are picking three clones
today, 114, 115 and 777. Steve decided that the Pommard needed
to hang even longer if possible (weather permitting). The
Pommard was harvested the following week (without my help ;).
We actually ran out of bins to put the picked grapes in, so we
didn't even finish picking the 114 clone (but almost all of it).
All said and done, there was about 16 tons of grapes picked on this
Saturday in October. Here are some fun Vino Factoids for you
to ponder: Sixteen (16) tons of grapes One barrel of wine contains: One case of wine contains: We will not bottle all of the wine as Lenne, some of it has been contracted to Owen Roe which makes wonderful wines. They use the Lenne grapes for their bottling of Kilmore Pinot Noir. The '06 has just been released and it is yummy. It's hard to say how much will actually be produced, there is loss of grapes during sorting, the skins and seeds are removed during crush, some of the wine will be spilled as it is racked into barrels and then evaporation during both the fermentation and aging process. So the numbers above are to be taken with a huge grain of salt :)
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| The man - Steve; driving the tractor in some very treacherous mud. He almost slid down the hill up on top of the vineyard while staging the bins for the grapes to be put into. | Here are a string of bins all staged ready for the pickers to put the grapes into. You can see the slope and it goes both ways, down towards Laughlin Rd. and then up the rows of vines. |
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| A row of Pinot Noir clone 777 grapes waiting and ready to be picked. It is such a beautiful sight to see rows and rows of beautiful Pinot Noir grape clusters. | Up close and personal... These are regular to large clusters of Pinot Noir grapes... |
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| I think I was doing a taste test of the grapes as I was walking from one end of the row to the other... | Jim is heading up a row to see what needs to be done to help the pickers up there. More than likely he is contemplating his coffee and wondering what I got him into! |
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| Another view of a row of grapes, but look at the slope! You really had to watch your step, my feet did slip out from under me once walking down between rows and I landed on my behind. The mud would cling to your shoes/boots and you would have a full inch stuck to your shoes! | A beautiful sight, actual Lenne bins just waiting to be filled with those sumptuous grapes... |
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| One of the pickers hauling their purple loot to the bins. They got a work out walking the slopes between rows to get the full buckets up to the bins. They get paid by the bucket. | The price per bucket has risen in the last couple of years, it is now around $1.75 per bucket, they can do between 10 to 14 buckets an hour! It is literally back breaking work. |
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| A close up view of the grapes being picked. We couldn't do it without them... | This bin of 777 clone Pinot Noir is filling fast! |
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| Not that the pickers get to enjoy the views, but I sure did in-between my tasks, this is the horse barn at the bottom of the hill, you drive past it coming up the driveway to the vineyard and tasting room. | A view of the tasting room and the hills beyond. It was a really overcast day, but we lucked out and only got a couple of sprinkles of rain! |
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| Here I am making sure that the grapes are leveled in the bin so when they are stacked none of the grapes are crushed. I also put on all the blue labels of which clone was in the bin, I think I did about 60 squats that day as I put them on and my thighs were letting me know the next day! | Checking out my work, making sure there were labels and the grapes were level. |
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| Steve is picking up full bins at the bottom of the vineyard (in the tractor) while pickers are still picking grapes and having to bring them UP the rows, now, to the top bins. | Every now and then you will see some white grapes, in this case Chardonnay, mixed into the plants. You are "suppose" to get what you order when you order the plants, but you just never know until they grow up and show their colors :) |
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| As the picking is winding down, Jerry Owen (partner in Owen Roe, blue shirt) and Sergio (friend of Jerry's) brought the truck to haul off the full bins to the winery for processing. Jim was chatting with them. | Sergio (red coat), Steve (middle) and Jerry are talking about the harvest, how the grapes taste, and it all looks good! I think Jerry tasted through a few handfuls of grapes, which is a good thing. That means they are pretty darn tasty! |
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| Steve had to stage the full bins in-between rows that had already been picked so that Jerry could get the truck in for loading. It was very tricky to pick up the bins without dumping them and not hurting the vines on either side. | Moving the bins from the rows, placing them in the open so that he can stack them two high, then it's time to go into the truck. |
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| Steve had to work very hard and very precisely to make sure he could get as many bins as he could into the back of the truck. | Jerry is in the back doing a little more sampling while helping Steve to line up correctly and make sure he got the bins in "just right". |
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| Towards the end, Steve could only load one at a time, here Jim is watching and offering help I am sure :) | Here's the Lenne bins stacked and waiting for the grape sorters to have room for us at the sorting table. They were busy sorting other grapes when the truck came in. It took two trucks to haul all of the Lenne grapes to the winery! |
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| Here is some other Pinot being sorted and de-stemmed. The Lenne grapes were next in line for the process, but it took awhile to get to us. Here they are sorting out large "other" matter like leaves, bad clusters, etc. | The grapes then go into the de-stemmer; the grapes go into the top, the stems are dumped into the white bin on the left, and then the juice and/or grapes get dropped into the fermentation bin (wooden box with a plastic liner) underneath. |
| On Wednesday, October 17th, Jim and I got the chance
to help Steve out a little more at the winery where "we" make the
wine. For all of the workers at Owen Roe, Steve is going to
prepare his world famous pizza. Jim and I got to do a little
sous chef work in between taking pictures of the Lenne grapes going
into the press. It happens to be the 115 Pinot Noir clone that
we picked on the 6th! We get to see it from the vineyard into
the barrel. I love all the aspects of wine and wine making, so
this has been a real treat for me. Besides being with family
and friends, this is one of the major reasons why we spent so much
time this fall in the NW. It was well worth it, but I think
Steve Lutz is going to be glad to see the end of us for awhile :)
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| '07 PN (Pinot Noir) Lenne clone 115 picked 10/06/07. This is the fermented juice and grapes waiting for the press. What you see are the seeds and skins that float to the top of the fermented juice/wine. It's called the "cap" and it is punched down twice a day so that it gets all mixed up to get the best color and flavors. | At the bottom of the bin (under the cap) is what is called the "free run" juice. This large sieve is pressed down to the bottom and the free run juice is pumped out so it can be collected separately from the pressed juice. |
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| This is the large press at the winery, they are dumping de-stemmed Muscat grapes (not Lenne) for pressing. I got a taste of the grapes before being de-stemmed and they were so very yummy! | Now these are "our" Lenne grapes going into the small press. They will be pressed very gently and the juice/wine will be tasted at different times so that only the good juice is kept. After awhile, the juice starts to get too tannic from the seeds and skins and not good for making wine. |
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| This is what is left at the bottom of the bin once the contents are dumped into the press; sediment and seeds. | And it's wine! the beautiful end from some wonderful fruit. |
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| The free run wine is being placed into stainless steel tanks until Steve figures out what type of barrels he wants used for the aging process; new oak, 1 or 2 year old oak, neutral oak, French oak, Hungarian oak, American oak... decisions, decisions, but very important ones! | The pressed wine is being pumped into barrels directly, in this case, a new French oak barrel. |
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| New barrels just waiting by the barn, they want their chance to age some wonderful wine... | Steve chatting with one of the employees that is managing the press while the Lenne grapes are in it. Steve was tasting the wine to see if it was ok or not; it was still good at this point in the pressing. |
| And now, the pizza! Steve sure knows what he is doing, he use to own a pizza shop called Borolos (in between stints in the wine industry). He has been trying to perfect his pizza dough, he found one (a pizza dough) at a local shop that he really likes and he is persistent. I am sure he will end up making it even that much better! He made all kinds of pizzas for the workers for lunch. They smelled wonderful; I didn't get a chance to have a slice, not that I was working so hard, but just wanted to make sure there was enough for those that were! | |
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| Steve getting the stove fired up. It was tricky, the oven needs to be really, really hot to make great pizza. Steve kept at it until he was happy. It took a little help from one of the crew to get it set correctly. | David O'Reilly (partner in Owen Roe), Jim and Steve chatting in the kitchen waiting for the oven to heat up. David and Jerry provide lunch for their crew every day from this very kitchen. |
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| The second pizza is ready to go into the oven, it's a simple but tasty vegetarian pizza. | We served them LOTS of pizza and salad, these are the first ones out of the oven, ready for the crew to start coming up to enjoy... |
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| Steve getting the pizza skin just right... | Putting the finishing touches on a sun dried tomato pizza... |
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| The crew starting to come on it... | David sitting with the crew, they are all very knowledgeable about both wine and food. It was fun to listen to them talk about lots of different subjects as they enjoyed their lunch. |
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all in all, it has been a great harvest. This year was a
little wetter than previous years, but I think Lenne is going to
make out better than so many of the other vineyards. The '07
will be different than the '06 but both are going to be great!
Here is a letter from Steve
(owner/wine maker) to the partners (which we are one of).
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And the reason why we do this? |
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| So we can have LOTS of these full of great wine and then... | the wine ends up in these wonderful bottles for us all to enjoy! |
| and... Because we love it! | |
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I couldn't help myself, I had to add a little color to the page. I went up to the tasting room on Saturday the 20th and boy, had the colors changed there too. |
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Looking up at the tasting room from Laughlin Rd.; the sun was moving across the vineyard.
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This was taken from the tasting room driveway, about 1/2 up the drive. |
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| This is a closer view of the lower portion of the vineyard |
Same part of the vineyard but looking a different direction, in this case, across Laughlin Rd with the Willakenzie vineyards on the next hill. |
