The next few weeks are all about juggling.
The Syrah, what hasn’t been devastated by birds that puzzled out the vineyard netting, was sitting at 23 brix last night, so I’ll be starting the routine of collecting and cleaning the various bits and pieces of harvest: the crusher destemmer, the fermentation barrels, all the way down to the buckets used for collecting the fruit off the vines. ETA for crush: sometime this week.
Crush is followed by the primary fermentation period, when my life seems to be spent largely in the barn, punching caps and monitoring wine chemistry at all hours of the day and night.This goes on potentially for weeks, depending on whether I am able to pull all of the fruit at once or not, before the wine is pressed and sealed off for racking.
It’s a long and involved process, and it’s hitting just as the workload is picking up in Sotto Voce and work-related responsibilities.
The proofreader’s edit arrived this weekend for my review, and I’m grateful to have a few weeks with it due to time constraints that are only exacerbated by the fact that I have a harvest to bring in. Since my typical work day has been running at about 14 hours lately, this is going to be interesting.