Our Sauvignon Blanc arrived on Tuesday. Although it was a small lot (5 tons), it takes all day to press because our press really is optimized for small lots of red wine. It's only 1200 liters and while that'll actually do up to five tons of fermented red must (the stuff left over after fermenting), it can only do about a single ton of whole cluster white grapes. Each press cycle runs up 120 minutes. That's 10 hours of pressing!
In any case, the fruit looked great and the juice tastes even better. It was settled for 48 hours in tank and then racked off of the solids and back into tanks and a couple of barrels.
I was feeling pretty good about having a couple of weeks before the flood of fruit really began and then I get a call from Stu Bewley (Alder Springs). Turns out that things are ripening quite a bit faster than expected and some chard will be ready next week! Luckily we'll be able to grab fruit from a different part of the vineyard and wait an extra couple weeks.
