2010 Pinot Noir Harvest!

Stephen cleaning the one-ton fermenter bins, to get ready for the Pinot Noir

David and Olivia at the vintage-ready Crush Pad

Picking the Pinot Noir, early morning on the 3rd of October

The vines denuded, the picking box filled

Stephen shows a ripe little cluster, next to the veil-like bird netting

A timeless scene in the Americas: she could be among the beans and corn, a millennium ago

Our Italian tractor pulls a trailer full of loaded boxes at the end of a harvest morning

David dumps another 40 lbs. of Pinot Noir grapes into the stemmer-crusher

Stephen monitors the grapes before they drop into the stemmer

The boxes of grapes arrive at the upper level, making it easy to lift them into the stemmer-crusher
We add a little dry ice to chill the fruit, hence the white vapors. The stems are spat out of the stemmer and land in the bucket and on the ground to the left to be used as fertilizer on the vineyard

Harry adds dry ice with each pound cooling 1 degree F

Lunch was brought by John-- slabs of garlic toast, andouille sausages, Belgian beer

The lunch offerings filled the whole table (actually a slab cut from an ancient walnut tree)

David offers the crew a 1997 Pinot Noir from a jeroboam (3 liter) bottle

The second day's picking crew: 20 of us, mostly novices, got the whole job done by noon