Harvest  1999  October 20, 1999

I don't know what to write today. I'm tired.

All fruit is picked now except two blocks of chardonnay, one Stoller, one Corral Creek, and the late harvest stuff.

Days have been 15 or 16 hours long, seven a week, and almost three weeks in a row.

Harvest is a campaign--

--which is either an appropriate word, since this IS a battle, no matter how nice the weather is this year

--or is a legitimate word compounded of CAMP and PAIN, since this is very much camping out, both here and with the seven other harvest workers in my house, and pain, which we feel doing everything from punchdowns to hundreds of forklift dismounts.

We have to program lunches and quitting times or we find ourselves at 5PM without having had lunch and here until midnight, when we have to be back in at 7AM.

Kelly gets the job of getting us to lunch and coordinating guest cooks. It's a time to shift conversation to something other than wine--seems like marriage and babies come up a lot with our crew this year. Once the last chardonnay comes in tomorrow, we will also force a day off in rotation for the crew.

Winery activity is heavy into punchdown, with 12 red wine fermentors filled and some actively chewing up sugar, as well as barreling white juice for inoculation after a day or so settling out gross solids.

Pressing white loads continues, with 5-6 press loads of about 2 tons each run each day--our next capital purchase may be to get a bigger press for next year.

In the middle of the battle, of course, the press had electrical problems yesterday, taking four hours and draining of good humor to resolve. Life!

Harry