The Harvest Moon Has Set

Yesterday was the last day of harvest. Picking in November is a novelty for Sky. Generally when harvest lasts into October, it's note-worthy. November? Unheard of.
It was atypical in many ways. The leaves had all fallen off the vines and we were picking late harvest from the old vines. I've never seen the vineyard naked and full of fruit at the same time. The crew was small -- Lore, Matt, Jesse, Chris, Paloma and me -- and we sought an elusive bunch of grapes so we wander in groups of one, two or three throughout the various blocks. Although the vines were loaded down with fruit, we picked only a bunch or two from the vines. Personally, I had no idea what we were supposed to be picking. Late harvest is dessert wine so we were looking for the sweetest grapes to ensure that there would be some residual enough sugar after fermentation. We were instructed to pick bunches that were raisony and had shriveled grapes, but weren't too dried out. And nothing with plump grapes. And nothing that was too picked over by birds. And nothing that was pink. And nothing that didn't smell right. And nothing that didn't taste good. We had 14 boxes to pick and it took hours. And I'm sure I didn't pick one bunch that actually met the specifications. Not that any one person could agree on what the specifications actually were. Needless to say, it was a typical sky deal.

After a mellow and light lunch of chanterelle mushrooms and humbolt fog grilled cheese sandwiches, we headed down to crush.

It was a particularly fun crush. We set up outside and crushed our quarter ton. The grapes, despite being undoubtedly all wrong in the vineyard, magically were transformed into awesome looking late harvest. Barely any juice and super high sugar. Matt got to fulfill a life long dream and vinify the grapes in a traditional manner as old as the zinfandel grown in Croatia back in the day (whichever day that was) (zin used to be thought to have come from the Primitivo grape in Italy, but was recently proven through DNA analysis to actually come from Croatia. Exonerated from any connection with La Famiglia).



I'm feeling a little post-partum but also relieved. Another harvest here and gone. Now we just wait with anticipation and anxiety to see the results of all the hard work and in two years we can assess the success of the endeavor. If it turns out well, I'm sure it was from my skilled eye at picking which bunches would lead to perfection. If it's a disappointment, it must be someone else's fault. I'm just saying, that's all.