Another big week….

…..and so now I offer another apology for not blogging more this week.  We brought in Chambourcin grapes on Monday….close to 9 tons!  Then during the week, we headed over to Trout Lodge to teach wine classes for the elderhostel group each morning.  The group was a lot of fun, and I had a blast the last day learning a little cajun footwork.

Throughout the week the Chambourcin was fermenting on it’s skins (and seeds).  On Friday Clyde spent the day pressing out the wine from the skins.  I snapped a few photos of the last bin to be processed:

The Chambourcin has been fermenting in these big white bins for the week, and the first step of the process is to mix all the juice that has settled in the middle & bottom of the bins with the skins that have floated to the top.  This makes pumping the mixture upstairs into the press a great deal easier.  Here’s a look at the mixing process:

Once he’s mixed the bin into a nice liquid-y slurry, everything is pumped into our press.  Here’s a look at the inside of the press:

For the most part the fermenting juice simply drains out of the press since the skins are pretty well broken down by now.  But there is a lot of liquid that gets trapped in the center of the press, so once Clyde has finished pumping everything in, the press is closed up and turned on.  After a few turns, much of the juice will drain out, and then is pumped back down into the cellar to finish fermenting.

The skins & seeds that are left in the press are dumped into a bin and will be taken out to compost for a few years:

The birds eat this stuff all winter too….I usually make Clyde dump a bucketful so I can watch the cardinals go after it all winter.

This week we have one more load of Chambourcin to process, some Norton, and a bit of Missouri-grown Cabernet Sauvignon too.  So I might be absent again for a while, but I’ll be back as soon as I can with more photos.  Cheers!