harvest

I stopped by William Church Winery on Saturday to do a punch down of the grapes. It’s a process of punching down through the grapes as they sit on top of the juice. It looks easy but it a challenge to punch through the grapes at first. It get a bit easier as they have [...]

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It’s a bit of a drive up to Challenger Ridge at Concrete but worth it. We had an incredibly beautiful day to eat, drink, and grape stomp. Everyone and their dog was at this event. There was salmon and brat BBQ, live music, pumpkin bowling, sun and lots of delicious wine. I went through a tasting [...]

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Last Saturday was another beautiful day to be working with grapes. I spent most of my day hand sorting out leaves, spiders, mold, and bugs from the Cabernet Franc grapes at NW Totem Cellars. After the sorting the grapes they run they through a destemmer to remove the stems and anything we missed. We sorted through 2.6 tons [...]

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I spent all day Monday up at Hollywood Hill Vineyards harvesting Pinot Noir. It dosen’t seem to be hard work at first but getting down close to the ground and bending while clipping grapes soon makes the back a bit sore. Then you have to take your full bucket down to the end of a [...]

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I had a nice long talk with Rachel at Challenger Ridge Vineyard & Cellars the other morning. I had stopped by to taste Eagle Haven Winery and Tulip Valley Vineyard & Orchard wines and ciders.  I did really enjoy the ciders from Tulip Valley and the wines from both of the Skagit Valley wineries. It was [...]

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I had a little bit of dirt under my fingernails from A Day in the Vineyard up at Hollywood Hill Vineyards. They are the only producer of grapes in the Woodinville area. They have about 3,000 vines up on their property of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which do well on the west side of the Cascades [...]

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A story in The News Tribune  today states that Washington is going to have a record grape harvest. The harvest is expected to be about 155,000 tons. That’s a lot of wine. Tweet This Post

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Winemaking is tough work, especially during harvest, which often is a 60-day marathon with few – if any – days off as the grapes relentlessly arrive, oblivious to whatever else you might want to be doing. Such is the case with winemaking parents whose children play fall sports. Tweet This Post

It’s the day after Labor Day, and wine grape harvest in Washington should kick in today. We heard scattered reports about some white varieties (primarily Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris) being picked late last week, but the real work should begin now. Tweet This Post