WOT A SLOG! October 4th, 2009

(with apologia to Mr. W. Shakespeare's King Henry V Act II Scene III)

Via Vecchia Crush 2009, Act II, Scene III, The Winery Steps

"This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crush 2009 shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered;

We few, we happy few, we band of vintners;

For he today that stomped and carried the grape to the vat with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in Ohio now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That slogged with us upon Crush Day 2009."

Why the dramatis? Well, although 'tis not unusual for something to go wrong and make life a tad more bothersome, Crush 2009 really did itself proud in the "pain" department and it will go down as the slog to end all wine-making slogs. And as is oft the case with adversity involving people pulling together, it will make for good story-telling and thoise who were not there will wish they were. And that made me think of King Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech to the troops before he gave the French the trouncing at Agincourt (1415).

So what was so pianful this time around? Well, namely we again pushed production to the limits of our heritage wine making method and it was lucky we know how to do it by hand or forget it. ..

1. Grape turn up 2 days late and still cold - oh no, risk of stuck fermentation, boo-hoo, get the lab-coated man-not for us, we can deal with this with no artificial intervention.

2. Merlot won't go through the hopper to the pump and on to the fermenters;

3. Ditto for Cabernet Franc

4. Ditto for Cabernet Sauvignon

5. Ditto for Pinot Noir

2 through 5 thus involves putting a black bin under the crusher to collect juice and skins, then carrying bin down twelve steps to winery (it's underground for temperature reasons), where the grape is again crushed in the bin before being poured into the fermenter. It meant a completely manual process no tknown since 2004 when we did it all by foot for the last time!

Some perspective - the above procedure was repeated @ 330 times with each bin weighing between 50lbs and 70lbs of juice, skin and seeds.

Just as well the Syrah and Sangiovese behaved and we were able to bypass the above hassle and pump juice

and skins to the fermenters.

A rythm was eventually adopted by Paolo, Marty and Joe working this process in the winery where each would work 2 out of 3 trips, rotating on crushing duty. It developed into hour after hour of a play on the Abbot and Costello "who's on first?" sketch, 'cept this time it was "who's on top and who's on bottom?" The bottom referring to who cam down stairs first and therefore was in position to crush again.

Of course, "top and bottom" can mean other things too, which made for a lot of painful laughter and some concern from those at top of stairs doing the initial crushing.

Anyway, as the speech says, I would kick myself if I hadn't taken part even though it was a slog.

[still to come..

our pre-crush event, honour role of thanks for volunteers, pressing update]

See Us at Whole Foods - Pinot - Oxford YouTube and a Fun Competition

Sat. July 25 , 4 - 6pm.
Whole Foods at Sawmill Parkway (Dublin Store).

Whole Foods are running a meet the local producer event and we'll be there since we're a local producer. Stop by, say, "hello" and wear you Via Vecchia buttons so we know not to bore you with our spiel all over again and can talk about other things.

Pinot Noir.

The Pinot is bottled and now labelled. This will not be released through any retail outlet and not subject to tasting events. It's too precious for that - seriously - the grapes are the most expensive we buy and it has been aged longer and as you know, time is money, especially when you manage your barrels like we do. And it is good. A true Pinot not artificially mellowed out. And we don't use enzymes to bleach the color into the wine from the grape; this is still produced the way we do all our wines with no artificial treatments or interventions, a process no-one else can claim hand-on-heart. This is not cola nor chemical soup.

Oxford.

Angie posted an animation of the Oxford Wine Affair we were invited to at Oxford, late June. We appear twice. A Via Vecchia button to anyone who can spot both appearances and describe the shot accurately enough. This "competition's" open until August 1st 5pm. Send entries via email to viavecchiawinery@yahoo.com and put "I Seeeeee Yooouuu" in the subject line.

Busy, Busy and Busy

We've been quiet 'cos May was busy. Such a lot of activity around bottling and labelling 2007.

We're now in 3 restaurants in Cleveland,

The Bistro on Lincoln Park

Le Fever's River Grill (Cuyahoga falls)

La Campagna (true old school - no menu, no price list, just foods cooked there and then - oh, no website)

and

Our 3rd Whole Foods

La Campagna is currently batting 5 - for - 5: 5 mixed cases in 5 weeks. They know how to sell wine.

There's no carbon contribution as the deliveries made to the places above share an existing ride to Cleveland.

We also donated wine to 2 charity events - Dine Originals and Women Attorneys Group.

We're invited to do the wine for the Dean's Dinner @ Miami University

And we will be at Oxford Wine and Art Affair.

There's more we're busting to tell - but can not.

PS - Mike H - got the check!

Vino Meza - Whole Foods

VINO MEZA
48 N. State Street
Westerville, OH
614-259-3101

For those of you East of Columbus and perhaps a little tired of travelling in to Whole Foods on Sawmill to get your fave bottle of Via Vecchia wine, or even travelling out to us in Powell, note that from Tuesday 10 March, Vino Meza (Westerville) will be carrying our Adamo (cabernet franc and sangiovese blend) and Trouve (bordeaux blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot blend).

Whole Foods
Sawmill,
Columbus

And for those of you trying to get your Trovato (sangiovese and pinot noir blend) from Whole Foods, we delivered more Trovato to them this morning. They also have the Trouve.

Jungle Jim's Market, Cincinnatti, Ohio

It's with great pleasure that Via Vecchia Winery announces that all four of its 2006 wines are now carried by Jungle Jim's Market, cincinnatti, Ohio.

Jungle Jim's is THE place in Cincinnatti for food from all nations and a huge wine selection, so we're excited to go there. We've since found that many people anecdotally know of someone who has to go there each time they're in town.

So a big thanks to David S and Todd W of Jungle Jim's Market for taking time to taste our wines, listen to our story and take us on board.

Here's a link to the wine page. That's David in the photo.

Some notable comments from David and Todd

"Old European style reds"

"All food-friendly wines"

"California wine, with a twist"

"Well balanced"

"We like what you did with the fruit"

Their address is:

Jungle Jim's International Market

- 5440 Dixie Highway -

Fairfield, Ohio - 45014

Phone 513-674-6000 - Fax 513-674-6001

Barrels, Tastings & Opportunities

Last week we tried out our new bottle filler. It did a barrel in about a third of the time, maybe less - so 3 hours do do @277 bottles down to 1 hour. It honestly took longer to set it up and clean it, although with familiarity that aspect of it will improve.

The French Oak barrels are ordered and are on their way; scheduled for arrival next Wednesday. We will rehydrate them so they swell and don't leak, and turn then periodically until we're ready to move wine into them from secondary fermentation.

Next Tuesday we will have a visit from a prospective retailer who is putting together a wine shop independent of a distributor and therefore free to take whatever she tastes and believes to be good and unique. Personally, I feel it would benefit to know which outlets are "Free Houses" and can select what they want.

Next Thursday we're at Jungle Jim's emporium in Cincinnatti where we get a shot at having them carry our wine. This is due to the Doctor who attended La Tavola's first wine pairing dinner earlier in the month. We love customers like this. Thanks, Doc!

Next friday we're at the Clintonville Co-Op. Eugene - tell us what you want and we'll bring some reserved just for you!

Inventory Update
JorroMa (syrah) is almost gone.
Pinot Noir (un-named as yet) is going to be so good it will not form part of any tastings unless bottle price is paid as it's an extremely small production - and it's very good. It will also first go on release to those on the mailing list for first chance to buy. It will be first come, first served. Availability around May or June this year for this fresh 2007 pinot noir.

Getting Busy again

So a lot is happening again.

Saturday 9am - 12noon - if you know us, pop on by see what's up - shout when you arrive, we'll help you across the snow.

We checked out or old barrels and rejuvinated them. This consists of cleaning them out and filling them with water to rehydrate them. We have put wine in before hydrating and just watched it leak out again, whilst frantically caulking the head with sliced cork - can't do that with a plastic cork. Luckilly it has always been the head that leaks and even luckier, the head you can see, not the one against the wall.

So all went well with 2 barrels. 1 barrel decided it would pursue an alternative career as a sieve impressionist and got into character by happily leeking like one for about 12 hours.

It leaked from the head and the staves. But happily for us, it eventually gave up and decided to join us in maturing the 2007 wine and closed up as tight as a, well, a barrel.

It all helps with cutting down the expense of ordering more used french oak barrels and helps the planet.
We ordered morebarrels for 2007 too. They may be here next week, and we may start transferring soon after. I think the secondary fermentation is more or less complete. We'll see.

These barrels will be rehydrated too.

Tomorrow we try out our new filling machine. For thos eof you familiar with the Tom Baker Dr. Who, the filler looks like the machine used by the Santarans (Sultarans?) to go around kidnapping survivors of a crashed ship on an earth many years in the future. I dare not copy a photo from the BBC since they jumped all over those who copied the TellyTubbyies. remember them?

Well what about the Clangers, BagPuss, Chrystal Tipps and Alistair, Ivor the engine and Ludwig (what was that all about?). And long before there was Captain Jack, there was Captain Pugwash and Noggin the Nogg. Feel free to add to the list of nostalgic programming.

By the way, the Pinot Noir for 2007 is out of this world and will get even better over the next 6 months or so. Reserve now as we already have people who have tasted from those barrels making offers!

Also, Jorro-Ma (the Syrah) is getting very low.

La Tavola Food and Our Wine

Get the New Year started right...what better way than to ease into that post New Year's holiday first week back with some food and wine.

Sounds good, yes/ then get to La Tavola - the people who know a good wine by its smell alone - Tuesday Jan 6 for 7.30pm.

It's $25/ticket and for that you taste the wine and their paired foods.

We'll be there too, with some paraphenalia .

Hope to see you - wear you VV buttons so we can identify our supporters easily.

Photos at last!

A few photos for you. There's been a dirth of images lately, so here's some to make up for it.
And just because we don't grow the grape, doesn't mean there isn't more labour involved with our heritage process and there isn't left craft. Thankyou.

But first, our 2007 grapes are still making soap. Latest batch for sale arrived. Contact us for purchase. Thanks

Pump Out Free Run.

Well, Strictly speaking, free run should come out under its own steam...but that's modern day corruption for you. We still have primary fermenters (the blue drums) with taps on to let it out, from the days everything was done by foot (excluding this year's foot stomping of the merlot), but we pump it out now.

Press Out the Second Wine.

The wine that's pressed out of the skins and seeds after the free run has been taken is traditionally used as a second-grade wine to drink pending your first drinkable wine in the New Year. I don't think any winery does that any more as it's all money. We use this to top up the headspace in the ageing barrels during ageing - any left goes into its own barrels when the vintage is totally bottled and we keep tasting it until we decide what to do with it.

Second Wine Storage

The second wine is storage in demijons. Since the 2008 merlot had to pressed by foot, we thought it appropriate to store and manage it in one of the original old boys from Tuscany - who's pushing 120 years old by now. Look at him go!
By the way, the wine is sealed with virgin olive oil. It floats on the wine and doesn't let air in whilst letting fermentation gasses out. See if you can find a photo of the tool used to extract the olive oil in an earlier posting.

Secondary fermentation Underway.

Free run wine now in secondary fermentation in these blue drums. See some of 2007 wines ageing in french oak barrels in background.

2007 Grapes are in Soap Again.

Here they are. Order some - order them all!

Now for Some Fun.

There are many items of very specialised and costly equipment in the winery, that only trained personnel can use - only kidding, just common sense and a lack of fear is all you need. There are also good luck charms in operation too - winemaking t-shirts are worn, luni-head necklaces are worn, and so on. However this year it was like super-hero-dom in the winery with special appearances of that dynamic duo Mermaid Man and Apron Boy, with dandy yellow gloves of imperviousness and apron of skirtness.

First time yellow gloves have turned up , 'cos it's obvious what would be said, but the apron's been around since the beginning - see if you can count how many pictures through this blog it appears in (hours of fun).
Unfortunately we cannot divulge the identities of Mermaid Man and Apron Boy.

Locally Minded

Just a reflection on just how small a community can be.

So we get about a bit now and talk to the people we meet at tastings and the retail owners, and we find out how there's a lot of interconnectedness (is that a word?). For example, the retailers in different parts of town seem to know each other, they know the same buyers, and as you build up these acquaintances you can help each other out with referrals, their ideas for business and now, Christmas parties.

With our charitable giving, it leads to introductions to others to experience the wine, who in turn make connections with you with their acquaintances. We're at a stage where we're experiencing the ability to say we do know a name that is offered up to us by a new acquaintance.

(Note on charitable wine auctions - a bottle of ours just went for $560 at an event hosted by Hexion)

With people, it is great to recognise them out and about. It's fantastic that some turn out to be evangelists for us - true locally oriented heroes. And it is a measure of their integrity and determination, in the face of all that's convenient and mass produced and cheap, when they turn up to further support you beyond the wine and also buy the chickens' eggs - thanks, Janice.

Personally, I like to be able to use these connections to help those I meet. It happened recently at Whole Foods where I met a gentleman (who bought a mixed case of wine) whose father was growing berries and was getting into mead making, but needed support and guidance, so I was able to put him in touch with the Simply Living organisation and Local matters, both wonderful resources for putting local producers in touch with retailers and people.

Finally, I connected over time, generations and geography when an older gentleman challenged the authenticity of our wine making methodology at a tasting with a healthy synicism. On recognising his heritage I switched to using Italian and soon, after probing questions to test my authenticity, he understood, to the point of buying wine. He promised me feedback too, which I hope he does do.

We Stomped - Again

GET WINE

Friends

Thanks to all those of you who turned up on 10/11 and to those that helped out. We hope you stayed for food later on in the day and enjoyed the now traditional bonfire.

(above - the start - all clean - rollers prepped to take bins of grape to wooden tippers that feed the crusher's hopper with grapes)

The day did not go as smoothly as we had hoped as we had machinery issues with many a tear down. This was particularly annoying since we had replaced the main bearing on the destemmer's axel only a couple of night's earlier and hoped for clear running.

Also, some grape varietals just turned to a jam in the collector and refused to go through the pump to the fermentation vats, so there was a lot of reverting to Plan B which meant crushing into open top tubs that were then carried to the fermentation vats.

As if this wasn't frustrating enough, on Wednesday 15th we decided the Merlot was just like concrete so we reverted to Plan C which is foot stomping. We stomped by feet 2,160lbs of Merlot that night to free up the juice and produce a must capable of fermentation.

We're not called Via Vecchia (the old way) for nothing!

Needless to say, none of us found time and energy to take photos, although we hope to get some from Kay and Dan who were filming us again for The Documentary. Actually, I think Carrie posted some, but I lost the link... can you please provide again, thanks?
All in all 13,500lbs of grapes were crushed that day.
We did Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

Again, thanks to those that persevered with us on the day... Special mentions to;

Holly, you are an excellent stand in for Joe S;
Carrie, your enthusiasm amazes;
Nick & Joan, your apron appreciated your return visit;
Mr & Mrs H, what can we say, STARS!

But Mike H, you mean to say Colorado's got something better to offer?

And for those requesting it, here's Cynthia's Pasta Recipe. The veg and basil was picked from the garden that day.

Cynthia writes,
"I didn't get to all the guests on Saturday, and many people like the
sauce. So if you'd like to email them a thank-you with the recipe or
post it on the blog that might be fun.

Crush 2008 Fabulous Pasta Sauces

Fry 2 diced onions and 6 cloves crushed garlic in a good quantity of
olive oil. Then add 5-6 quarts of quartered fresh tomatoes, a bunch of
flat-leaf parsley, and an eighth cup of finely chopped basil, and a
teaspoon of finely ground rosemary. Simmer with 1/2 bottle of wine for
3 hours, and salt to taste.

Heat your serving plate in the oven. Then layer pasta, sauce, and
grated Parmesan cheese in about 3 or 4 layers for your average
platter. Makes about 4 platters.

For sausage sauce:
Cook 3 packages of nitrite-free hot sausages (Kroger is best), cool
and cut into rounds. Fry chopped mushrooms in olive oil, add diced
sausages and simmer until mushrooms are floppy. Add basic sauce and
simmer. Serve over penne layered as above onto a hot platter.

Yum!"

Thanks again. Next piece of work is transfer to secondary fermentation,

Sales Outlet Update

Thought it was about time to update the list of where you can get our wines, outside of the web.
Apart from Whole Foods, please call them for availability...remember, we'll deliver too!

a), Shane's Gourmet Catering & Market

447 E. Livingston Ave., Columbus, OH 43215-5534

Phone: (614) 358-5555 Fax: (614) 358-7777

b), Simple Indulgences

20 West William Street, Unit A Delaware, Ohio 43015

Phone: 740.363.5763

c), Clintonville Community Market

200 Crestview Road, Columbus, OH 43202

Phone: (614)-261-3663

d), Whole Foods Market

1,
3670 W.Dublin-Granville Road
Columbus, OH 43235
(614) 760-5556
2,
1555 W. Lane Avenue
Upper Arlington, OH 43221
(614) 481 3400

e) House Wine
644 High Street
Worthington, OH 43085
(614) 846-9463

f) The Winery
8231 N.High Street
Columbus, OH 43235
(614) 847-8115

f), Buy From Us Direct

The ship kits are here we have FedEx lined up, so place your order for our wines.

We take VISA, MasterCard, AMEX, Discover, Debit. If paying by check, you have to mail your check in first.

Phone - (614) 893-5455

email: viavecchiawinery@yahoo.com

Delaware City Council, Some Shops, Restaurants and Stuff

[apologies for lack of pics - will remedy that]

Delaware City were very impressed with our presentation. Our theme was Sustainability, Community and Integrity, rather than the "give us" attitude. They really appreciated what we had to say and have put us in touch with property owners in Delaware, who we're working with. This is all coming a couple of years ahead of plan as we were going to stay where we are for three production years and here we are, barely into year 2, and we're off speaking with Cities.

We had a great time at the Columbus Local Matters annual meeting putting local producers in touch with local business and we're following through on good contacts made at that event. Needless to say, we targeted those people who were in chef uniform first.

Going out to shops is an experience. You get all kinds of opinion expressed and it never ceases to amaze me just how subjective a subject wine is. I do not think we've had two tastings result in the same comments from the stores we have done. It has all been positive, but everyone finds their own thing in the wine.
The differentiator among stores is currently falling into two camps; those who are interested in the connection with the winemaker and how the wine is made, and those just concerned about marketability and price-point. All are equally valid - this is just an observation is all.

The restaurants are totally different though. They seem to need that connection to the winemaker, that we offer, so that they can talk as well about the wine and what it took to make it in the same way they can explain the food they make. We even have Scali's inventing a desert for the Trovato there and then as we took him thorough tastings of our wines!

Finally , all our labels are approved and are with Bob at Tapp's for printing. We hope to have them very soon as we have sales for the unlabelled wine too.

Last week we check the naturally occurring sulfite level in our wines. After 5 months from crush, the range is between 35ppm to 55ppm of naturally occurring sulfites. We added enough to get to 60ppm to stabilise through a year of upcoming ageing. Remember, 60ppm still well below the organic standard of 140ppm!

We're still seeking insurances - product liability etc. As a new venture this is not that easy and potentially limits sales as there are some entities that require you to carry the requisite insurances. We'll get through it though - always do.

We also thank Joe Mercurio for his support and introduction to Giuseppe's. Thanks, Joe.

Full Moon Racking

Well, we're truly in the midst of secondary fermentation. This weekend saw the final racking of the wine. Last weekend was the full moon, dead on, so we transferred the bulk of the wine at this auspicious time. A lot of our process is dictated by moon phases and other un-scientific methods, but it means we can make wine without the treatments, so who're we to question millenia of practice.
This weekend we finished the wine in the demijons. The demijons manage our silty wine, enabling it to clear with time separate from the free run wine. Here's a picture of us racking from the demijons by siphoning. The demijon on the floor in the iron cage is thought to be around 100 years old (see previous post).

Our process, in part, relies on the lees in the wine to provide natural anti-oxidation/protection against air. It's the rationale behind the "sur lees" method of winemaking. Here's a view fo the lees that have settled out against the sides of a demijon that has just been racked. Lunar-esque n'est pas?


Now those same lees have fantastic astringent qualities too and make great face packs, as demonstrated by Via Vecchia's own Apron Boy (aka Paolo at right of pic) and Rob' Clone (aka Marty at left of pic).
Also note that Zen Tree Soaps uses these lees of ours in its face pack product.


And speaking of Zen Tree Soaps, here they are at the North Market in Columbus. The upright and longitudinal wooden display stands are made out of an old wine barrel of ours (Marty ran them up) and on them you would see, if you were there, soaps using grapes skins from our Pinot Noir and Syrah, sugar scrubs using grape seeds from our grapes and the face pack using our wine's lees.
This is a nice venture for us

Just a Few Things...

As we creep ever nearer achieving that most excellent event of seeing our wine in its bottle, fully dressed, there are events going on that heighten this excitement and serve to douse it somewhat. In short, we're experiencing a decidedly mixed bag of emotions right now. Its effect is seen in how few the posts to this blog has become.
So this post will be plain and just go through some high and low lights of the past few weeks. It's ameasure of things when we really only have one low, but it is of such fundamental importance, it seems to dominate and negate all else.

Highlight 1 - Soaps and Recycling Grape & Seeds.

This is so cool. Lucia of Zen Tree Soaps found a use for our grape skins and seeds. She makes soaps and all manner of our related products. When she came by to see us transfer from primary fermentation to secondary fermentation she went away with about 3lbs of each grape varietal we had - taken right from the fermentation bins.
Within a week she had returned to show us her Pinot Noir soap. A soap with our pinot noire grapes in it. Paolo has been using this for two weeks now and reports the bar is at the stage where the grape skins are really poking up and so as you soap yourself they act as an exfoliant.

Highlight 2 - Recycling Grape Sediment (Lees).

Still with Lucia, we gave her about a cup of lees from which she is experimenting with a face pack. The lees are a great anti-oxidant and we know from our own experience, that if you smear it on your face, as it dries it really cleanses your skin.

Highlight 3 - Candle lab

Curt of The Candle Lab stores visited. They make custom candles and they run candle making parties. he likes our wines and is looking for a way to introduce them into the business. State laws, such as they are, do not simply allow him to sell our wine, or readily include them as a private event party beverage.

Highlight 4 - Maca's

Michelle (of Mamapalooza fame in prior posts, and partner in StarfFish Clothes), called us from Maca (a Tapas Bar in Powell, no website) . She had got the owner interested in our wines. So we went down with some wine for him to try. This was very nerve-wracking as it turns out that Norm, who was a basketball player for Barcelona (No.15), Spain, was taught how to taste wine by the winemaker of Chateaux Margaux.
Long and short of it was that he liked it, said we were doing the right thing, and that it was amazing that we turned out a nice wine as he thought we had a big handicap other winemakers don't (our shipping of our grapes).
So he wants the wine. And again, State laws being such as they are, this is not as simple as it sounds due to minimum markups etc. But we'll get there.

The Abyss - 1

Our label approval is a grind.

Federal laws being such that they are, means that because our State of Ohio does not touch California, where we get our grapes, means we cannot claim the California appellation. Fine. However, if you want to state the grape varietal on your label, you need the appellation, so we are prevented from stating the varietal on the label. And, without the varietal stated, you cannot put the year.
So, even though , we do get our grape from California, we do use sangiovese etc, and we did produce our wine from the 2006 harvest, we cannot say any of that at all, anywhere.
All we can say is Red Wine, state alcohol content and give the blend or varietal a fanciful name.
We were not allowed to state that we don't sulfite either, or use minimal sulfites, or sulfites below the organic standard.
At one point we were prevented from using "produced" even though we do produce the wine - that got sorted out in our favour - eventually.
We feel penalised. We cannot state what we have done on our label. we cannot state truth. In fact, during one enquiry of the Feds, we were accused of doing something illegitimate because otherwise we wouldn't be querying their rules and trying to find loopholes to get the true information on our label!
How does this serve the public, when we are prevented, through regulation, from stating truthfully on the product's label what is in the bottle so that the consumer can make an informed decision?
Whatever, we'll get there. If anyoen has some helpful industry advice, it would be very welcome.

Columbus C.E.O. Magazine Article
Yeah, we'll talk about this later. Lessons learned in journalism, we guess.

Transfer to secondary fermentation

Over Friday 12 and Saturday 13 we transferred the wine from primary fermentation to secondary fermentation.
Deciding when to do this was mostly driven by the finger method, but had to include some allowance for the must rising and peaking, then falling back into the wine. Whatever.
The transfer is a hard slog. We had a guest staying, Roger, who was here for a spiritual healing event he'd set up, but he soon found himself helping in the winery.

Here's Roger being plied with food and drink, prior to the forced labour.

The transfer is roughly divided into two processes.
1. Free Run
Up until 2 years ago, free run for us meant opening a spigot and letting the wine flow out of the primary fermentation vessel. Now it means what we pump out. With free run we pump the wine from the primary to the secondary fermentation vessel until it's full, then seal it with an airlock of olive oil.
2. Press
After we have got the wine out of the primary, we then take the grapes and seeds (marca/must/cap) and press these out. We collect a lot of wine this way, but it's a bit more silty. This we separate into demijons and use it to manage our barrel losses whilst ageing and also to keep the secondary vessels topped up. The silt will settle out quite effectively without use of chemical or mechanical filtration.

Here's our press. It's all manual. We make it a bit of fun too as you can work the press like a ship's capstan, so obviously we stand around the press and sing sea-shanties as we pull and push the lever on the ratchet. Before the press really "bites" into the grape the ratchet spins quite freely on the central screw, hence the capstan effect. When the press has bit, then one person cranks the lever, end of capstan.

This part of the operation takes a while and is monotonous. Long into the Sat's early hours, Roger listened to us singing sea - shantys. We are pirates, you know.
Sea shanty's are great as you can take it in turns to make up your own verses...you can but imagine.

After the wine is pressed out, you dismantle the press and you get a compacted "cake" of grape and seed - see below.

Another piece of fun was pressing Mike's cap. Here you see a short (and dark) video of him finding his cap.
[video to come - fed up of waiting for yahoo video to process it]
Now we did have some labour saving device this year int he form of that conveyor that you saw us use during the crush itself. Now you see the conveyors on the floor providing a great way to get heavy drums of pressed grapes out of the pressing area and into the area where they're staged to go out of the winery.

Oh, did I mention this was messy?

Next post about how we have collaborated in the community to use our waste grape skins and seeds and how we're going to reuse the silt that settles out of the wine.

Punch Down Tool & Stomping

Recent activity on this blog reveals an interest in Punch Down tools and Stomping Grape by foot. Luckily, Via Vecchia, always authentic, can offer you true grit on both topics. When we say we do it by hand and it's crafted, it is. Where else could you see punch down using your arms or stomping by feet?

1. Truly hand (arm) crafting the wine.

From last year check out this most manual of punch downs where it's literally all elbow-grease.(you may have to scroll down a bit).

2. Evolution.

From this year, see evolution in action as we learn to use a tool, which is a highly specialised stainless steel disk on a stick.

See it in operation as it punches the grape skins and seeds (the "must" or "cap" or "marca") down into the wine, which is becoming less like grape juice with each passing day.

3. Stomp Grape by Foot.

Now for stomping. We always do a bit of this, and here's a photo. Maybe if there's still enough interest we'll do a compilation of foot stomping over the years. And of course, stomping is communal, as demonstrated by N&J below, who are incredibly good sports and were such a lot of help.

Other Matters.

Of other matters, we transferred from primary fermentation vessels to secondary fermentation vessels over friday evening and saturday. More of that in a later post.

Bursting Wine grapes.

We took delivery of the following grapes from California.
SanGiovese
Pinot Noir
Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot
Syrah
[here we are with some of our grapes]


These grapes are then transferred to our stainless steel crusher and destemmer. We handle the cases of grapes across roller conveyors and sorting tables, and eventually they end up on a rig that tips them into our crusher.
Sorting. By this we mean we go through each case of grapes to remove all leaves, dried out grapes, green grapes and moldy grapes. This year's grape was very clean, even by our picky standards and although there was more leaf than expected, there were virtually no bad grapes.
[here's Mr.H on sorting duty. Stirling work as always]


Crushing. This is done by our crusher. Actually, it should be called bursting instead, since the rollers through which the grape passes are set such that they burst the grape and do not crush it flat. All we need is for the juice to become loose so that nature can start the fermentation.

Our crusher also has a destemmer which removes the stalks from the must that ends up in our fermentation drums. This year was different in that the usual handful of stalk did not make its way into the fermenter.

[here's Mike at the rig with the stainless steel crusher in the middle. The black sorting bins go in the platform to Mike's left. thius platform is then raised to tip the grape into the crusher. Notice juice and grape in the rig. Mike has his hands in the crusher's hopper - do not try this at home]

Next post will talk about the food we served up.

We Stomped!

Well, we stomped again!
As our first year's production is still ageing in barrels in the cellar, the second year's grape is crushed. A lot went on that day, so we'll do a little each day or so to take you through it, rather than produce one huge post.
We'll touch on the food we prepared and the trouble we went to in ensuring it was produced with the same care and pride we take in our wines; on the various parts of the process we use; the efficiencies and the inefficiencies we encountered; and, most importantly, the community of people that help us do this.
It is most fitting to therefore start with The Community.
This post is dedicated to those of you who turned up and contributed to a great day.
Thankyou.

(if you are not in this photo, it's very likely you will be in photos of the rest of the day's proceedings - to be posted)

Last of the 2005

Today was, in retrospect, a watershed. It passed almost without significance and yet, it marked an end to making wine outside the "bubble" of the bonded winery status of Via Vecchia Winery. Why? Well, today saw the breaking of the last remaining barrel of our Bordeaux blend (Truove) from 2005 which was not produced under bond. From here on in, any bottling of personal use wine will come from the bonded 2006 barrels.

We leave you with images of that last barrel, a stack of wine cases duly receiving their bottles, and Michael standing proud beside his quarter share.

Well done all.