Sorting, Sorting, Sorting! Grapes, Grapes, Grapes!
Suddenly grapes begin arriving from all corners of Oregon! It begins with Early Muscat and Pinot Gris, and continues with reds: Malbec, Barbera and Pinot Noir (ahhhh, Pinot Noir, my favorite!).
The white grapes go straight into the press then get pumped into tank, but the reds...ahhhh the reds. Let the sorting begin! Hour after hour, sorting through these beauties on the shaker table (see photos!) we find and cull out the little rottens, under-ripes, bugs, leaves, stems or any other “MOG”: Material Other than Grapes. A conveyor-like table that moves back and forth to shake lose the weak or rotten berries which fall below, it’s just a little too high to be comfortable for the average-sized human, but as I understand, a step up from the table of yesteryear which I have blissfully avoided by coming on in the vintage of 2020 (notable in several other ways).
As I brush off several earwigs from crawling up my shirt, one of my colleagues looks over and laughs, saying “yeah, you know wine and bugs go together!” I look over, laughing, and realize he’s not joking, and I’m seeing that he’s not joking. The longer I work at the table sorting, becoming stickier and stickier covered in grape juice, I realize that the earwigs are multiplying. For some reason they go for my neck, I swat and brush them away – obviously smearing more grape juice on myself – and lo and behold more bugs come to the area and “bug” me. I shrug it off and continue with fervor. We have a job to do here!
We put a designated amount of dry ice in the bottom of large bins, after which the de-stemmed red grapes go into and are then left to begin their fermentation process over a period of days. Little do I know I will later become intimate with these fermenting bins doing other continuing work :)
Returning home after the first full day of grape sorting, I’m not only exhausted and covered in grape juice, but somehow excited to have touched so many grapes and been part of this amazing process. Another day of “initiation”. The Sorting Table. One might call it repetitive but I find it methodical and meditative. Let’s see what the next days bring!
