Wine harvest has finally come in the Willamette Valley! For the past two weeks, my job as a wine harvest intern has included lots of preparation for the harvest. When the grapes are finally ripe, things become much more fast-paced in the winery as we start to process all of the fruit and begin the fermentation into wine (read more about the wine harvest here).
Most of the prep for the harvest is lots of cleaning…so fun! Although not so glamorous, it’s critical in the weeks leading up to harvest to ensure that everything (and I mean everything), is clean and ready to go, from tanks to fruit bins to floors. While cleaning makes up roughly 75% of the work, there are some other fun activities and trainings the team has been busy with, too. Here I share the tasks which have made up the majority of my job over the past two weeks, as we prepare for the harvest. Enjoy!
cleaning tanks
Cleaning all of the equipment in the winery has been the largest task as interns the past couple of weeks. We have cleaned over 70 tanks as a team. These stainless steal tanks are where fermentations happen early on in the winemaking process–for red wine, the whole clusters of grapes go straight into the tank with some additions, and for white wine, the grapes are pressed into juice before going into the tank.
For smaller tanks, someone actually jumps in to clean it! For the larger ones, pumps are used with special attachments to clean the inside of the tank. Other machinery we have cleaned includes the lines you see connected to the tank, grape presses, shelves, buckets, valves, kegs, sorting lines…pretty much everything! One of my jobs was pressure washing the entire floor of our white winery!
Topping barrels
Right now in the cellar, past vintages of chardonnay and pinot noir are still fermenting in barrels. The wine in these barrels is still “alive,” meaning chemical reactions are still happening between the yeast and the sugars in the wine. The barrels are sealed tight but are porous, allowing for small amounts of alcohol, water, and carbon dioxide (produced from these chemical reactions) to evaporate over time. Therefore, the barrels must be “topped off” by adding more wine to the barrel to ensure there is no headspace and minimize oxygen exposure in the wine. Topping is an important step to the aging of the wine, because exposure to oxygen can react with the wine, degrading its quality and causing early spoilage.
vineyard sampling
In the weeks leading up to harvest, vineyard sampling is a crucial part of day-to-day operations at a winery. It involves going out to each vineyard, gathering clusters of grapes from the vines, and bringing them back to the lab to test levels of acidity and sugar. It’s important to constantly monitor the condition of the grapes to ensure everything is on-track for the harvest. It’s fun going out into the vineyard and taste-testing the grapes, too!
cleaning bins
Yes…more cleaning! One of our largest projects leading up to harvest has been cleaning the bins our fruit will be stored in after harvesting and before processing. We have a whole operation set up on our crush deck: first, we forklift the dirty bins over to the cleaning station, next, we pressure wash the bins to remove dirt, mold, and bugs, then we clean and sanitize each bin by hand before forklifting the clean bins into another stack. Although this job is repetitive, me and the other interns have fun with it by blasting music! Also, all of us have learned how to safely operate a forklift, and being on the forklift is actually pretty fun.
barrel hydration
Another important task from these past couple of weeks has been receiving new barrels and getting them ready to store wine. All barrels are porous, and dry barrels must be hydrated in order for the wood to swell and close the gaps in the planks. This makes the barrels water-tight and avoids any leakages when wine is added. To hydrate, the barrel is filled with water and left to soak. We also test each barrel for proper toasting and for TCA and other contaminants. Samples of the water that has soaked in the barrels are extracted and tested to ensure they are in proper condition before adding wine.
wine tastings!
Now for a fun one! While this isn’t technically prep for the harvest, the team has been doing several wine tastings recently. Last week we all sat down and tasted 18 of our wines, and our winemaker talked through the story and significance of each one. We also have been doing several blind tastings as a team, learning more about how to taste and identify key components in a wine such as tasting notes, tannins, location, grape variety, and vintage. The team has also been to other wineries in the area for tastings. It has been fun to meet with other winemakers, tour more cellars, and learn about stylistic differences between all of the wines. Read more about the wineries I visited last month here.
It’s been a busy past couple of weeks preparing for harvest, and we are expected to start receiving fruit from our vineyards sometime this week. Stay tuned for more about the harvest and for more details about the winemaking process!
Thanks for reading 🙂
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