Day 0 - Rosella's

Today the last fruit for Kosta Browne arrived for harvest and we saved the best for last - my favorite vineyard, Rosella's Vineyard. We get both the Pisoni and 828 clones from Rosella's which we sorted today. The photo here is a "grapes eye view" as it falls onto the elevator that takes it to the crusher/destemmer.

As you may notice from the title of the post I am going to take you through the whole process of the Rosella's arriving in the winery until it goes into barrel in two weeks or so. The grapes arrived on a truck that left Rosella's at 6am. By the time they dropped some fruit off at A.P. Vin and headed up the highway to us it was 11am. Still the fruit was nice and cold - which is very important since we don't want to let any nasty bugs get a foothold before the must is inoculated with yeast in a few days.

Here is a cluster of Rosella's Pinot Noir Clone 828. The cluster is very tight with great shape - like a little hand grenade. The flavor just zinged -- zippy acidity with some of that characteristic Rosella's citrus. We destemmed the Rosella's into six fermenting bins - three for the 828 clone and three for the Pisoni clone.

These beautiful de-stemmed honeys will spend their next four days or so chilling out in the cold room (which is a nippy 55°). That little bit of time just lets the skins and juice get to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere before we sic the hungry yeasties on them and start making some damn tasty wine!