Crush and Press in the Cool of the Night

After picking the grapes in the cool evening/night, the work is only half complete.  Above are the night shots of Chris, Luke, Colton and I working to crush the grapes and de-stem then.  From their the crush goes through the 2" flexible pipe into our 300 gallon press.  Luke is directing the must onto the rice hulls which Chris is sprinkling throughout the crush.  The hulls act as capillaries to allow the compressed grape skins to release all of their juice.  For those of you who have not witnessed the press, the grape juice is forced out through the mesh strainer as the crushed grapes are gently, evenly pressed using an expandable rubber bladder.  When the press is full, the stainless-steel lid is lowered into place and everything is secured.  The water hose is hooked up and the pump pushes water into the bladder which squeezes the grapes from the inside out.  Each press takes the better part of an hour as the bladder inflates and then continues to exert pressure on the skins for 30-45 minutes.  In the end our patience is rewarded with gallons and gallons of high quality Vidal Blanc juice. 
This year's harvest has been extremely bountiful with 300 gallons of Chardonnay, 500 gallons of Vidal Blanc and 650 gallons of Concord juice.  We still have to harvest the Chambourcin over Columbus Day weekend and then the Cabernet Franc sometime later in October.  The weather has been perfect and the juice is fermenting into next years wine.  If you want to come out and lend a hand, our next picking date will be Sat. October 6th starting at noon.  We will finish our picking of the Chambourcin that evening with a big harvest dinner of roasted pork, sauerkraut and dumplings washed down with fresh grape juice and wine.