pinotopia 2008 Harvest at Pisoni
10 October 2008
by Kenneth Lounge
facility
View of the front of the facility. No chateau, no villa just an industrial park.
russian river pinot
The first bin of a russian river pinot, wholecluster, after being dumped into a 5 ton fermentation tank. Grapes are red but they are blue when dry.
california clusters
The berries of pinot noir are small and so are the clusters. These are slightly wrinkled and probably just about perfect ripeness.
the "crush pad"
On the left is the lift where the bins of grapes are dumped onto the sorting table - the conveyer belt where bad clusters and leaves are taken out. Then, the grapes are destemmed in the aparatus on the right and deposited into to grey bin on the left. The stems, or "pomace" are dropped into the bin on the far right.
sorting table
The view form the top of the sorting table. Poor souls are, clockwise from top left, Vincent Bigeard, Mr. Handsome, Riley Harrison one hell of a bloke, and Megan Glaab the lab technician. Sometimes at the sorting table we get to drink beer. Most of the time we just bullshit about this and that. Sometimes when Megan isn't there we have really interesting conversation about various adult topics. I think sorting tables everywhere could get together and blackmail all California winemaking staff.
destemmer
The destemmer accepts clusters in the upper left of this picture. Berries are smacked by a series of rotating arms and separated from the stems. Stems are pushed by the arms out the back of the machine into the bin in the right of this picture. The berries and juice fall into the bin in the foreground. Cleaning the tartrates that accumulate on this machine is done with a highpressure hose with 180 degree water. That occurs after you wipe all the grape goo off. This is not fun.
more clusters
Pinot clusters with "uneven set." Any berries that have not turned purple are terribly sour and unpleasant.
Words and photos provided by Kenneth Lounge