Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Wednesday, October 20, 2010. Today Mary made the decision as to what to do with the grapes. We are going to selectively pick the Marechal Foch first. Because of the condition of the grapes she is not having the pickers come in to do that job. Mary, Liz, Joan, Tom, Lynn, Jake, Sebastian, Roserio and myself, were trained to do the picking. We picked one and 3/4 bins, that equates to about 1,750 pounds. We are all sporting purple hands tonight. The Foch is currently being processed through the distemmer and put into a large tote so it can start the fermentation process. Because of the lack of Marechal Foch grapes, Mary is thinking about mixing it with another red grape and making a blend of some kind.
Tomorrow morning the pickers will be picking Beckenridge. Beckenridge is another 10 acres that Mary has at another location. We will go back to picking the Chardonnay and Pinot Gris at Mary's vineyard. Using these two grapes Mary and Liz are going to make Champagne. This will be a one time thing because they have never before made Champagne and do not intend to do so in the future. Tomorrow will be a long day as all the fruit picked will need to be processed. The reason we are picking so fast is that we are trying to beat the rain that is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

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