We were given access to the secondary crop, and brought in half a ton premium Cab Sauv grapes. We got about 800 lbs from old vines, 200 from new. Very heterogenous grapes: 50 percent taut skins, 30 percent golf balls, 20 percent significantly shriveled. Zero green grapes, zero raisins.
Timing: harvest at 7am (!!!), finished by 10am. Thanks to Paul Garvey, I paid 7 pickers from Michoacan $40 each. We filled four 44-gallon garbage cans, one 33 gallon, and 5 mail tubs. Per refractometer
(from Kyle the vint of Paul Garvey's crew), field Brix = 28. Per Oak Barrel, Brix varies between 25-30. Stemmer/decrusher 5pm-7pm. PROS: was able to process grapes right off the back of the truck. Used the tailgate and sawhorses to support stemmer crusher. CONS: Inefficient setup required crusing into 2 side-by-side must bins and a stem/refuse bin. Then hand-bucketed the must into fermenters. Next time, I'll set up stemmer/decrusher about 4 feet off ground, so that grapes go straight into primary fermenter, via some sort of funnel. Paid $50 for 1 day rental of stemmer/crusher.
Chemicals: added metabisulfite (meta) to stop any native yeast etc., and diammoniam phosphate (to prevent later hydrogen sulfide production). Mixed both with water into one bucket, dumped 1/4 into each fermenter, stirred with punch down tool.
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