how it’s made - pt.1
“Dude, what are you doing?”
I had to have “that” talk with myself the other day.
It had been a while since I’d sat down and put some words on paper, and even though I’d been looking for wines and stories that inspired me to write about for some time, I had that tinge of guilt. That nagging feeling that I was neglecting my responsibilities, so on Monday, I had to have that classic look yourself in the mirror talk and push myself to get back to work.
Why?
Well, this past month has been busy for me, both professionally and personally. At my day job, I’m trying as best I can to add value to 3 different pieces of the organization, which has me mentally “tapped” for lack of a better word when I get done with work.
This, of course, has had trickle-down effects on the blog, and my journey towards becoming a wine professional.
BUT, I’m still fighting.
I’m still dedicated to this wine thing. So much so that this past week I registered for the Wine & Spirit Education Trust level 1 class (certification?) taking place next month, to force me on my path.
And, a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to help do a barrel tasting at one of my favorite wineries on the planet, Delaplane Cellars.
This brings us to our next blog.
I wanted to talk a little bit more about my entry into the world of wine and explore some of my time these past few months working on wine production. It’s too big of a story to tell in one part (you’d lose interest trust me, hell even I might) so I thought I’d break it down as follows:
Part 1 - The Harvest
We talk about… well you’ll see it below
Part 2 - Barrel and Barrel
I talk about Barrell tasting (from both sides of the wine’s journey)
Part 3 - Bottling and Beyond
it starts with one
You see, Delaplane and I go back some time. About 11 years actually.
Before then, I was a “craft beer guy,” though I guess I still am to a certain extent. I never really grew up with wine, never drank wine in college, it simply wasn’t on my radar. Till July 4th weekend 2010, my wife (girlfriend at the time) dragged me 50 minutes west of DC to Delaplane, VA, where this stunning winery sat on top of this little hill.
Photo credit to Jana over at nutritionicity.com.
She has some absolutely perfect pictures of what the place looked like a few years back.
The wines were good, particularly the original 2008 Cinq (french for five it was a blend of 5 grapes), but the ambiance was better. Everything felt high class. You walked into this gorgeous tasting room with an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows showcasing an absolutely beautiful view. It was a lovely summer day, and I fell in love. I was bitten by the wine bug. Together, my wife and our friends would turn into little VA winery aficionados. Traveling all over the state, going to wine festivals, you name it.
Fast forward a few years later, maybe 2013(?), and a little documentary gets recommended to me by a friend.
(Yes, the same one who likes to surprise me with blind tastings)
That little documentary was SOMM…
I… didn’t know wine could do that…
Sure I’d had good wine before, but I had no idea of the vast world of wine.
If before I was in love, now I was addicted. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to travel to more places to experience wine. I wanted to embrace wine culture, drink wines from all over the world, I was IN.
Fast forward one last time to September 28, 2020.
Over those seven or so years, I was lucky enough to become good friends with the owners at Delaplane. It’s a fun story in and of itself, but that’s for another time.
I get a call that Monday morning, and he asked if I wanted to help with the harvest, as I’d expressed interest in helping with production before. My day had already turned to shit at work, so I said, you know what, yes, yes I do want to help, and 45 minutes later, I was in the vines.
the fruit
I pull up to the winery and talked to the head of operations, who connected me with the vineyard manager, and she gives me the ultimate crash course in how to pick grapes. Suited with a utility belt, golf pants, a blue Nike shirt, a gator (cause you know, COVID), and a pair of what looks to be regular ol’ needle nose pliers I was ready to go.
She walked me over to a vine and showed me the ropes. She showed me how the trunk of the vine goes upward, then the arms stretch outward (left and right), and pulled a few of the shoots towards me that had fruit on the vine. There were two, very important instructions.
The first was where to cut. She pulled a cluster down and pointed at the stem of the cluster, just about where it turned from green to brown. You didn’t want to cut too close to the grapes, but you didn’t want to cut into the shoots either. I passed lesson one.
The second. Don’t cut yourself. You want to pull the cluster towards you in your left hand, and with the other, cut the stem and catch the cluster, then place it in the crate. On and on moving down the row.
Sometimes if you can’t get a hold of the cluster for whatever reason, you can just cut the stem and try and catch it as it falls, and if you’re really good you just clip the cluster and it falls directly into the crate.
She pointed me to where the stacks of empty crates were, these big yellow plastic baskets that collected the grapes, and I was off and running.
For about the next 3 hours I picked clusters of Cabernet Sauvignon from the vine. I’d fill the crate to where the clusters were level with the sides, go back to the stack, pick an empty one and move on.
It was really simple but very therapeutic. Just a man, nature, his thoughts, and miles of manual labor. Plus I could taste the grape right from the source. Which if you’re wondering, they have a great burst of sweet glorious grape juice upfront and very thick skins so as you chew, it quickly becomes bitter. That’s the tannin. More on that in part three.
Spoiler alert, I failed to follow the second set of instructions, and about 20 minutes in I clipped the tip of my left index finger. Though it was only a minor scratch…
controlled chaos
After a quick break, I checked in with the team working over near the barrel room to see if they needed help, and for a change of scenery. The vineyard team was so nice to me, but they were clearly running circles around me and my deliberate pace. For every “clip” you’d hear from me as I picked out a cluster, you’d hear a symphony of four or five “clips” from the team around me. Those guys were absolute pros, and I was more than likely slowing them down.
There was a group working at the de-stemmer that needed a break, so I volunteered to help.
The de-stemmer is this machine, which honestly is like if you took a wood chipper and stood vertically, functions very much the same way. What you do is one person takes a full crate of grapes that were literally just picked from the vine, and empties that crate on the top of the funnel, the machine then simultaneously separates the stems from the grapes and discards them to the side, dropping the crushed grapes on a conveyor belt beneath it.
The grapes then travel down a conveyor belt that is about 2.5 meters long maybe 1 meter wide, until they’re deposited in a large cube that collects all the grapes and juice.
The key thing here is that as the grapes are de-stemmed and dropped onto the moving conveyor belt, you want to remove any MOG (material other than grape) from the mixture before they are collected at the end of the line. This is critical, because the end product, what goes into that cube at the end of that conveyor belt, whatever it might be, is the stuff that goes into the wine, and the stuff we drink in the glass. So it’s important to remove these little green grape seeds, as they are like little bitter pebbles, and any parts of the grape stem that somehow still made their way through the machine, any leaves, etc.
Oh, and also spiders, stink bugs, and bees. Those are fun.
If you’ve ever seen I Love Lucy, when she and Ethel were in the Chocolate Factory, it felt something like that.
Meanwhile, Rick (the winemaker), is flying around on a forklift, sorting these giant bins of grapes, inspecting grapes that are brought in from here there and everywhere, and trying to organize it all so he knows where the Chardonnay needs to go, where specific lots of Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc are, and trying to make sense of it all.
The day is energetic, chaotic, and beautiful all at the same time.
cool runnings
The last thing I’ll talk about here is a cool little wine-making “trick,” often used for red wine, that I witnessed in person at Delaplane for one of their Chardonnay’s. The “cold soak.”
As you probably know, the color of wine comes from the grape skin. More specifically, the contact of the grape juice with the grape skin, in a process known as maceration. It’s an important part of winemaking and helps impart color and flavor to the end product.
The classic example is to think of it as dipping a tea bag in hot water. If you just dip the teabag in for a minute or two, it won’t impart that much flavor/color, but if you leave it in there for an hour, and really mash the heck out of it, it’s going to be super dark and full of flavor (maybe even a little too much).
The same concept can be applied to winemaking with the grape must (skins and sometimes seeds/stems).
Cold soaking, is where you store the crushed grapes at cold temperatures for a few days before fermenting.
Why cold? That part is simple, it holds off fermentation, and also helps preserve the grapes/juice.
Why soak? It’s a great way to extract color from the grape. You get a much richer color in the end product.
So after a few hours picking grapes, sorting out stems (and critters) from the cabernet sauvignon, and watching Rick speed around on a forklift I was spent. I went home, got food on the way, and passed the F out.
And, consider this if you’re at a local winery and wondering why wine is so expensive, that was just one day out of the harvest. So much work goes into that wine you have no idea (well hopefully you have some now). It’s a labor of love don’t get me wrong, but it’s important to try and think about everyone who had a hand in taking that from a cluster of grapes on a vine and turning that into a beautiful glass of wine.
-Dustin