The Patient Pumpover

Little did I know the rhythm of “harvest” would mean that at this point most of my days would begin to entail the punchdowns (see previous blog entry) or pumpovers (also known as remontage, French). A pumpover requires moving the grape juice from the bottom of the fermentation tank to the top, over the fermenting grapes. So how do we do this you might ask?? For the smaller tanks, a very intricate process of hoses and suctions as I stand over the tank on a small ladder spraying the juice over the must as I mentioned. Easy peasy!…but certainly a good workout holding the hose, digging the colander-like unit deep into all the grape must, and leaning over the tank using those ab muscles that always need a good challenge. But the bigger ordeal here for me was NOT getting tangled up in the hoses and losing control at which time the juice would go flying across the corridor making a telling mess around me. The sheepish look on my face as I peered around to see if anyone noticed was probably pretty funny, even as I ran to get rags for cleaning it all up. For the huge tanks (and I mean HUGE, like 1500 gallons), it is slightly more relaxed as far as the output of the juice, but only after first manually releasing much grape liquid into a small vessel only to then pump it over the top into the tank (see photo).

The first time I walked up onto the catwalk above one of these massive tanks to witness this, I was (scared of falling, yes) mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the whirling grape juice as it spiraled over the must, creating beautiful wafts of wine aromas and the deepest darkest purple I have ever seen. I don’t know what it is, but the whole process of winemaking and these possibly mundane acts just thrill me, even though this particular type of pumpover probably became my least favorite. I suppose one has to have a “least favorite” in order to develop the hierarchy of “most favorite” on down :-)

So there it was. In any case, as many times as I had to do the pumpovers they became a sort of meditation and act of patience as the process for the huge tanks usually took around 35 minutes to an hour, and for the small tanks, there were usually many in a long row and at 8 minutes each it definitely took some time. Of course in either case there was all the set-up and clean-up of the acts…again one of my least favorites! Hahaha. But these tasks made the time move and the wine do its thing. Lucky me I got to be part of the process and continue to do so! Still pinching myself!