Harvesting the Chenin Blanc

On Sunday, October 20, our friends gathered to help us harvest the first 8 rows of Chenin Blanc. During the days leading up to the harvest, my husband and I meticulously dropped the green bunches of grapes that didn't past the Brix text. My husband was sampling them while I was using the hand held refractometer.
On Sunday, we harvested 90 lugs of grapes in 3 hours! The first hour, from 8-9 our friends came to help us lift the nets in the 8 rows. There was a short break at 9 and we gathered into two groups working from the south end to the north end in rows 1 to 4. We paired up where one person held the lug and the other person cut the grapes. We had two runners in each of the alleys watching for full lugs and swapping them out with empty lugs. My husband and two people were in the alley between the rows that people were working in. They would retrieve the full lugs from the runners and ensure that the lugs were full and stacked them. In this way, we were able to do 4 rows in 1 hour!

Once the group reached the north end, we shifted over to rows 5-8 and did the same process harvesting from the north end to the south end. When we were done, it was 11 a.m.! It was a gorgeous day and people stayed for lunch. My husband brought out a tasting of Chenin Blanc 2019 and 2020 so that people could taste the wine that was made from the grapes they harvested.
The next day, Monday, October 21, we went to Stonington Vineyards to take the 90 lugs of grapes for pressing. Mike McAndrew's crew, Jim and Dakota helped us load the press and by 8:30, the pressing was underway!
We took a sample of the juice and recorded the Brix, pH and TA.
I began writing this blogpost last week but a week has already gone by and another Chenin Blanc harvest occured on Sunday, October 27. It was another perfect morning with temperatures in the mid-50s and sunny. This time, our friends exceeded even last weeks' harvest record, picking 8-1/2 rows of Chenin Blanc by 10:35! I think we are on to something with this method! We celebrated the last big harvest with our friends. Brunch was served and sticking to tradition, we provided a sparkling wine to mark the occasion!
On Monday, October 28, we took the grapes to Stonington Vineyard and had it pressed. The pressing was done by 10:30 and we took the juice back to our industrial space at Taugwonk.
These are the numbers for the two Chenin Blanc harvests with a comparison to the original numbers taken on October 6.

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc-statistical sampling	NA	NA	17.0	3.0	NA
Chenin Blanc- Rows 1 to 8	1980 lbs	160 gallons	20.5	3.15	9.5 g/L
Chenin Blanc- Rows 9 to 17	1875 lbs	150 gallons	21.5	3.18	9.8 g/L

We hope people enjoyed being part of the harvest! We want to thank all of our friends who came to help! And a huge thank you to Mike, Jim and Dakota!