What a whirl wind!
Amazing how time flies when you are having fun. And who says working 12 hour days for free isn’t fun? Not me!
Although I wasn’t in the fields collecting the grapes, I was able to participate in many other activities. Some of these activities include working the conveyer belt to make sure that all leaves and “unhappy” grapes are plucked out. The grape clusters are then put through the crusher/destemmer which essentially breaks the skin gently while the destemmer removes the stems or other larger particles.
Depending on the berry quality sometimes we used a shaker table. The shaker table is used after the stems have been removed and serves as the
last level of quality control to make sure that only the best make it in minus any leaves and debris. It is also my least favorite job as since the table shakes, everything you are staring at shakes and well, lets just say it is not the job you want after a few too many glasses of wine the night before!
From here the juice and must (the skins, seeds and pulp) are transported into the tanks where a close eye is kept on how it is developing. Once the fermentation has completed the wine (officially now) will be transported into some sort of bulk aging container, whether this is an oak barrel or stainless
steel is up to the winemaker depending on what style of wine is being created.
For me one of the most impressive things in this whole process is the amount of organization it takes and the efficiency of everyone who works to create the wine. It was truly amazing to witness. It is one thing to be able to read about the process but to actually see it in person gives a whole new
perspective.
I will forever be grateful to everyone at Maryhill Winery for letting me participate in the harvest. I learned so much and, as is so often the case, the more I learned; the more I realized I don’t know. Guess I will just have to do it again next year!
