Woooooah! It’s been a roller-coaster ride since I signed on at Naumes Crush and Fermentation early this year. Now, the hard work of countless people comes together in our first crush.
The facility is 90% complete and we’re fully prepped for the season. With more than 100 tons of grapes on the books already, we’re well on the way to being a key part of the skyrocketing Southern Oregon wine scene. We look forward to working with current clients and have capacity for others if this season produces the large harvest expected.
We pressed the first grapes on September 1, a three-ton lot of Sauvignon blanc for Upper Five Vineyards. Finally, we could put the state-of-the-art press through its paces, and, happily, everything performed flawlessly.
The full sorting process was tested the next day, with four tons of Pinot noir from Naumes Vineyards. We had the entire sorting line set up: grapes went through whole-cluster sorting to the destemmer, berry sorting post-destemmer, then through the optical sorter.
I was pretty stoked about how well the optical sorter performed. The quality of the grapes exiting was excellent, with hardly any MOG (material other than grapes). This equipment will let us start fermenting grapes at an unparalleled level of cleanness. Then some get transferred to two-ton, open top fermentation tanks, where they cold soak for a few days.
Oh, yeah; I’m looking forward to our inaugural season, helping clients create their ideal wines. Let’s crush!
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