Vintage 2020: Chenin Blanc Pressing at Jonathan Edwards Winery

We went to Jonathan Edwards Winery at 10:30 on Monday morning, October 12, 2020. We were involved in the cleaning of the press. Then the weighing of the bins, destemming and pressing of the grapes began.

Bin Order #	Row #	Weight	Tare	Final Weight
Bin 1	Rows 5-6	849	93	756
Bin 2	Rows 8-9	836	91	745
Bin 3	Rows 4-5	799	93	706
Bin 4	Rows 15-16	733	93	640
Bin 5	Rows 2-3	808	93	715
Bin 6	Rows 10-11	866	93	773
Bin 7	Rows 7-8	816	91	725
Bin 8	Row 3-4	821	93	728
Bin 9	Rows 12-13	846	93	753
Bin 10	Rows 16-17	429	91	338
Bin 11	Rows 1-2	825	91	734
Bin 12	Rows 13-14	679	91	588

After the first six bins were loaded into the press, we took a break. The free run juice from the first six bins was put into the first stainless steel tank. Then after the break, the free run juice from the second six bins was put into the second stainless steel tank.
During the pressing the pressed juice was put into both the first and the second stainless steel tanks. The pressing was over around 3:30 and thankfully, the anticipated rain held off. We helped the crew clean the press and helped them to put their Chardonnay into the press. When this was done, it was 5 p.m. and the Monday torrential rain forecast did not occur during this process. Phew!
For our purposes, we wanted to know how much weight in grapes came from each of our rows:

Row #	1-2	2-3	3-4	4-5	5-6	7-8	8-9	10-11	12-13	13-14	15-16	16-17
Final Weight	734	715	728	706	756	725	745	773	753	588	640	338

Since the grapes that came from each row was not enough to fill each bin, some from the next row was added so that the bin was topped off. Row 1-12 and half of row 13 is our Chenin Blanc clone 982 and half of row 13 to row 17 is our Chenin Blanc clone FPS-1. For the rows that are planted in clone 982, those vines have been producing grapes since 2017. This is the first year that clone FPS-1 is producing grapes. You can tell by the above table that the production from this clone was less than that for the 982.
We want to extend our thanks to the crew at Jonathan Edwards Winery and Jonathan Edwards himself that put the pressing of our harvest before his and helped us to press our Chenin Blanc!