Crush 2015

After harvesting our Chenin Blanc, the key thing was to take the fruit to the crush pad (aka home basement) as soon as possible. Since our home is minutes away from our vineyard, this was not a problem. We weighed the harvest and it came in at 65 pounds. I was a little disappointed because I had done a pre-calculation and was hoping for approximately 90 pounds, since I thought that 90 pounds would give us about 5 gallons of juice.
Prior to harvest, one of the dilemmas was how to crush such a small amount of fruit under sanitary conditions to extract the juice. We didn't have a problem with the lack of a distemmer because we had already decided to press the grapes on the rachis, i.e. whole cluster pressing.
Our solution was to use our cooler, which is food grade and put the grapes into food grade nylon bags used by beer brewers for steeping their hops and grains. Our friends filled up the bags with the grapes. Once the bags were filled with grapes, it went into the cooler. Okay, now what, you ask.

Well, I am really found of the traditional way of doing things so I would often tell my husband that I wanted to stomp on the grapes like they used to do in the old country. This year, my wish came true. In preparation for grape stomping, our friends put on the very effective foot protection, called a Hefty Jumbo Bag with adjustable sliders then they stomped on the grapes in a good rendition of "I Love Lucy---Grape Stomping Episode". Okay, I know that some of you are too young to remember "I Love Lucy", so here is the link to the Grape Stomping Episode. Here is our own version of channeling Lucy:

This turned out to be a very gentle and but effective way of getting out the juice because from 65 pounds of grapes, our yield was 6 gallons of juice!

Harvest 2015

Yesterday, Saturday September 26, was harvest day for us. We couldn't have picked a nicer day with temperatures in the mid 50's at 7 a.m. with no breeze. Our picking crew arrived and we began the harvest of our Chenin Blanc. The early morning is a good time to pick grapes because the bees are not out, although it must be said that the netting we used kept all manner of flying insects away from our developing grapes so that they remained very healthy and intact.

From previous count, we know that we have around 360 bunches of grapes to harvest and 153 plants that are bearing this fruit. The plants are scattered in 17 rows so my husband drove his tractor while we followed and harvested two rows at a time. It took us from 7:15 to 8:45 to harvest the Chenin Blanc. In the photos below, my husband has picked out one of the Chenin Blanc clusters that grew with a wing.

Harvest, done!

2010 Domaine Huet Le Mont

We are in the process of preparing to harvest our 320 bunches of Chenin Blanc. Our gold standard for Chenin Blanc is Domaine Huet. Recently, we had this 2010 Le Mont and it was sublime. So, the question is, how do we try to emulate our gold standard. We only have 320 bunches which we think will yield approximately 5 gallons of juice. My husband has been doing a lot of online research into the appropriate accoutrement for the making of the best wine in small lots. One of the articles he consulted was called Research On Chenin Blanc published in 2006 by Wineland and written by Dr Johann Marais of ARC Infruitec-Nietvoorbij, Stellenbosch. This article lead us to procure the yeast, QA 23 from Lalvin. The summary of the research indicated that:
"Berry size, sunlight exposure, grape ripeness, yeast strain, lees contact, pH, air and nitrogen sparging have a prominent effect on Chenin blanc wine quality and shelf life. Results, obtained under the conditions of this investigation, suggest that yeast strain QA 23 together with enzyme treatment during lees contact, were the best parameters for the production of Chenin blanc wines where lees character and more body are required. The ageing potential of Chenin blanc wine was markedly enhanced by an increase in pH of 0.3 units. Furthermore, it appears that wines produced from grapes with small berries, ripened under shady conditions and harvested at full ripeness showed the best potential to keep longer. Aspects such as oxygen management after fermentation up to bottling are of crucial importance."

Rain and the Impending Harvest

Last Wednesday, September 9th, we were keenly aware that a rainstorm was headed our way, so we had to make a decision on whether to harvest our Chenin Blanc or not. The problem with rain this close to harvest is that it can promote disease problems especially for botrytis and other late season rots (bitter, ripe and sour).
The Brix on the Chenin Blanc was about 17 degrees, and via a rather biased sampling and tasting, we knew that we had the flavors but the seeds were still on the green side indicating that ripening was not yet complete. We made a conscious decision not to harvest and to ride out the rainstorm, which brought us 2-1/4 inches of rain.
We consulted an excellent article that can be found online written by Mark Chien titled Rain at Harvest: finishing the end game. Mark Chien begins the article by explaining how the proper site selection, choice of variety, clone and rootstock, as well as vine density, spacing, and trellis and training system choices can all mitigate excessive rainfall close to harvest time. Of all the important factors he considered, Chien mentioned that one of the most important ways to preserve quality in a rainy vintage is to keep your fruit clean and sound by adopting a fruit rot program tailored to the conditions that occur during bloom, bunch closure, and version.
Having made the decision to let the grapes hang a bit longer, now when we go to the vineyard we check for signs of rot. So far so good. Yesterday, we took this photo:

We're hoping that our gamble to ride out the rainstorm will yield us high quality Chenin Blanc grapes.
References:
1. Mark L. Chien, Rain at Harvest: finishing the end game, Viticulture Educator, Penn State Cooperative Extension, September, 2010.