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Harvest

During harvest, our vineyard and winery hum with activity and high spirits.

Our vineyard crew starts picking berries before dawn, while the still-cool temperatures preserve the hanging fruit's freshness and flavor balance. The crew carries the berries to the winery in small lug boxes, to avoid the crushing and premature fermentation that can occur when grapes travel under the weight of other fruit. We sort and select our Cabernet berry by berry (see pictures below), so that only the best fruit makes it into our fermenting tanks, and stems, seeds, and leaf tannins are kept out. Each of our tanks is specially sized to match the yield of a specific block in our vineyard: There's one tank for each of our seven different Cabernet clone and four different rootstock combinations. While our wine ferments, it macerates on the skins for up to several weeks for increased flavor intensity. We select our Chardonnay fruit cluster-by-cluster before pressing, and transfer the wine to barrels for aging on the lees. All of these steps help to make our wines delicious on release, while bringing out deep complexity for long ageability.

1) Picking at 6 AM, Francisco works with speed and skill.

2) Salvador hoists a lug box filled with clusters ready to deliver to the caves.

3) The crew sorting Cabernet Franc. New equipment this year includes a hydraulic lift for the lug boxes (at left) and stools for the crew to sit on (at right) to make them more comfortable.

4) Benjamin loads clusters onto the conveyor belt while Gilberto, Agustin, and Jose sort out debris and raisined clusters.

5) Richard and Jillermo lead the crew to sort out any jacks (little pieces of stem) or over- or underripe berries.

6) Michael pours cream-of-the-crop Cabernet Sauvignon berries into a fermentation tank.

7) Chris and J.P. drain Merlot from its tank to pump it over. This aerates and homogenizes the fermenting wine.

8) J.P. Pumps the Merlot back into the top of the tank. Almost done for the morning!