What Is This Crush You Speak Of?

It's Saturday morning, I've had some yogurt and fruit and a cup of coffee. My freshly washed clothes are hanging to dry and I'm trying to figure out my plans for the evening. Yet this is no typical Saturday, how could it be after five 13+ start to crush? Days are long and labor intensive, muscles ache, and my purple hands have seen better days. All of this was to be expected, but until you throw yourself into the mix, it would be difficult to understand what it is. Luckily enough, the initial excitement and anticipation hasn't died off for me and the more grapes that get processed, the more 'winemaking' duties there are to be done.

Many people talk about wine as a living thing, and anyone who has seen 'Sideways' can probably remember the seen where the hypocritical Miles (his most prized wine was composed mainly of Merlot, despite the movie's bashing of the same varietal) and Maya wax on about the uniqueness of each and every bottle, everything that goes into making it, and how it is constantly evolving until the moment that that cork gets taken out. I, too, like this idea. So here is crush from a grape's perspective, so to speak.

--Unloading: Grapes arrive in 18 kilo or 40 lb. bins. Those bins are unloaded onto a slide, and the freshly picked grapes and everything else that comes with them pop out onto the the scene. No bums are smacked but I can imagine it would be a bit of a shock to slide down a ramp and crash onto the sorting belt.

--Sorting: This is where all undesirables are taken out. By all, I mean probably about half of them. Green leaves are the biggest enemy, but any and all foreign items should be discarded. Such items may include sticks, spiders, bugs, dirt clumps, different types of grapes and from one vineyard, we see quite a few olives, since the bins are placed under them to shade them from the sun.

This would be the formative years of a wine. You go through picking out the bad apples in life, and whatever one takes from these essential years, will stay with you and shape the person you become down the road. If you hang with the wrong crowd, you might end up in prison and if you don't sort out the crap on the sorting belt, you might end up on the bulk wine market.

--Destemming with the option to crush: The grapes taken the incline up to the top of the belt as we might take a roller coaster. Whereas we come out in one piece, the grapes fate isn't the same. They pass through the destemmer, berries fall down to another container (or pump) and stems get shot out the back end. Some people choose to crush the grapes as well at this point, rollers are used to squeeze the grapes and break them open. If not crushed, anywhere from 25-75% of the berries will come through unscathed. Either way, it's a very stressful moment I'm sure.

This equates to the dramatic life lessons and my favorite, 'character builders' that we all must go through. They are often painful moments, but nonetheless necessary. I can't imagine having your stem ripped off you feels good and then getting doused in Sulpher Dioxide would just make matters worse. Depending on the winery, this is also where you might add other things like tartaric acid to prevent a flabby wine (a lot of people like the taste benefits of picking grapes at higher brix-more sugar, but consequently compromise the wine's natural acidity).

Move, Lift, Move, Dump, Lower: Here at Bodega Elvira Calle, we use a gravity flow system, which in this case means that wine (or must technically) is not pumped into tanks. Since pumps aren't doing the work, we are. Grapes fall from the destemmer into a receiving bin. Each bin, when full of grapes, weighs over a 1000 lbs. We move the bin to a crane which then hoists it up to the top of the cement tanks. Depending on the vineyard and quantity, we then move the bin once again to the appropriate tank and pull a lever to empty the bin. A days work includes 35-40 trips which at times seems extremely daunting and at times manageable.

This final stage is the time where you've found some stability in life. Not so many late nights and anxiety about your future, this is your future, you are where you're supposed to be, doing what you will be doing. You've figured things out so to speak, and are the summation of what you've lived to that point. Were you well nourished and healthy on the vine, did you have enough sun, did they pick you at the right time, did you avoid bad crowds or are you surrounded by stems and leaves and olives? Changes can be made and the winemaker will adjust you but can't change you. You will be inoculated with yeast and you're skin will sag and break, your chemistry will change, you are no longer who you were before. Frequent check ups on your Brix, pH and acidity will be measured and analyzed to make sure all is on track, that you are healthy. And with 2-3 weeks, you will become the desire of so many thirsty individuals, your destiny and theirs will meet and they will judge you. You will be swirled and spit in some cases, mixed with ice in others, and if you end up in the hands of Miles, you might just be consumed from a styrofoam cup in a diner, accompanied by a hamburger to your final resting place.

1 Down, How Many More To Go?

Soooooooooo, that was a long day of work. Officially ending the day at 23.oo local time, that would be about a 13 hour workday. The idea of writing an entry at this point is ridiculous, so I'll keep it short and sweet. In total, we had 4 trucks come in from two different vineyards. Two girls helping sort, 2 hired hands dumping from the truck onto the sorting table, another part time intern helping with sorting, Alberto (the guy that gets shit done), Bernardo (the new guy that has something to prove to the bosses), myself (the Californian with a funny accent), Sergio (Overseeing and pitching in here and there), Kirk and his wife Roxanna (helping with sorting and shoveling up the spewed stems), 3 dogs, 3 kids, Kirk's brother and wife (enjoying the show) and various truck drivers watch us in desperation hoping that we'd finish up sooner so they could go crack some beer on the couch.

What does that equal? 16,050 kg of grapes or about 18 tons.

WHEW!

What gets overlooked by the numbers is all the work that accounts for nothing, namely, the cleaning. Anybody that has worked a crush knows that at the end of the day, when you've spent the extra gas you were saving already, the thought of clean up is hideous. You all know that the savvy, slink off to the bathroom, find something in their shoe which won't come out and even take off. That is what happened today. Of all the people that we had today, the cleaning was performed by myself, Alberto the Rock, and one of the hired mercenaries. A 30 min clean up turned into an hour plus and if my body wasn't already pissed off at me, it finally starting putting its foot down and refusing to do as ordered as I swept up the days remnants.

The positive sign of today's events is that after one day, nothing has changed. I can see myself doing this exact same think for quite a few more. There is something very rewarding about busting your ass. Whether studying for a test, a tough day of basketball practice, a great class where you feel like people learned, or a great night of service, the feeling is similar. But when you do it while doing something you are coming to love, the feeling is only that much better. If I had a glass of wine, I'd raise and proclaim, 'Here's to another day tomorrow as good as today!'

Buenas Noches

1st Day Update

Welcome to crush in Argentina ladies and gents: where the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

The 10 truck from the first vineyard arrived at 12.30. And then the second arrived at 13.00. Which meant we had all the fruit from the first round of picking arrive at the same time. In hind sight, it we used the extra time effeciently, cleaning up everything once again and getting done in the last second which could probably have been done on Sunday. But Sunday is for asados and futbol, so........

We worked the first two trucks and have now been waiting for at least 2+ hours for the 3rd and 4th to arrive. To put it in perspective, I got up at 7.30 today, had mate and yogurt by 8-8.15 and was busy cleaning by 8.45. From 12.30-16.30, lots of work was done and its now 18.30 and we are still waiting for the next truck. Efficient, not exactly, but a bumpy start was to be expected and will probably continue pretty bumpy for the rest of the harvest.

The main issue is with getting the grapes picked. Since we source fruit, we don't have a picking crew. That responsibility is up to each grower independently. What happens next, is out of our control, with so many cogs and wheels and moving parts, it's not surprising that things don't work like a well oiled machine. And..................WE'RE BACK. The third truck has arrived. More updates will come shortly. We probably won't finish before 11 or so tonight, so no promises as to when the next will be coming.

One last mate of course, and then we'll be ready to go.

A Trip to the Uco Valley

If Lujan de Cuyo is the valley floor in Napa, Uco valley would be the various mountain designations and the buzz surrounding them. It is the south of Lujan and slightly cooler and at higher altitudes. the soils tend to be rockier and with more sand. All these factors improve the possibilities of growing high quality grapes. The French and Italians bought in while the land was still cheap and are now making some of the most expensive Argentine wines. This wasn't always the case however, as past generations realized that excellent drainage and cooler nights meant lower yields and less profit. Having had and tasted some of the differences between the two regions was more than enough reason for me to get up at 7am on Saturday (the day after 'Boxing Day') and take the 1+ drive with Guille to check out the vineyards.

Much like our previous outing, I threw him every question I had and his responses were always calm and measured. The main issues to keep in mind are the dramatic temperature shifts from day to night (better balance and acidity), the drainage of the sandy, rocky soils and lack of organic matter (lower yielding vines of higher complexity), and intense sunlight due to the higher elevation (thicker skins, thus more tannins and polyphenols which will enhance color and complexity).

I have had the pleasure of growing up in Napa Valley and visiting the surrounding wine regions. The beauty of this area is so striking that I frequently find myself veering into the other lane while driving up the Silverado Trail. I have also taking a ferry down the Rhine River in Germany and sat in the back seat of vintage bug (top off, of course) as we buzzed around the famous Langhe in Italy, visiting towns like La Morra and Barolo. In Bulgaria I took a 5 hour car ride with two unknowns to check out the vineyards of Melnik tucked back into sandy mountains and in Croatia the vines hug the beautiful Dalmation coast. Each place is stunningly gorgeous and each place is unique. None of them, however, are set in as majestic a setting as are those in Uco Valley. I am not talking about asethic beauty, although the snow capped Andes certainly are that, instead I'm referring to the imposing background they provide. They loom over the vineyards with a regal elegance and also act as a natural compass so that one never loses track of their orientation.

We spent the day collecting samples, driving down one lane roads littered with pot holes and stray dogs. We said hi to the people that live in tiny houses along the dusty, rocky roads that head into the vineyards. Nobody seemed to notice when we strayed into other lots and tasted fruit that wasn't ours and it made me think about how many mix ups have happened over the years, both intentionally and unintentionally, where wineries didn't end up getting what had originally been planned. We picked out which lot we'd buy of the three available and decided to go with the least vigourous of the three. We drove North, South, East and West and stopped off to get some deli meats, cheese and bread. We stopped off at an abandoned vineyard and took some souvenirs. Vestiges of a time when quantity trumped quality, these gnarley vines were as thick as telephone polls and had 4 main arms instead of the two we see today. It made me think of Morimoto Napa and how one of the poshest, trendiest places in Napa Valley had old dead plants highlighting its interior design. I ate grape after grape and crunched on seed after seed. I prentended that I knew which were 'better' and which were 'worse' but came to the conclusion that those that I liked the taste of more were not necessary better or worse. In time, I trust that I will know. I ate so many grapes that the tip of my tongue became numb and prickly and when I was tired of the sweet juice and drying tannins, I scooped up the various soils into my hands and wished that somehow by touching it and smelling it, I would understand it better, as if by osmosis. It's exciting to feel that I have learned something from these two field trips with Guille and humbling to think that I know so little.

As we did before, we came back and analyzed the various samples. We ooed and awed about the color of the Bonarda and Tempranillo, we quadruple checked the brix of one of the Malbec plots which had actually gone down in brix (yet another case of the produce watering even though they've been instructed not to at this point), and we speculated as to how much longer it would take the seeds to mature. Basically, it was the first day that I started to feel like I could at least hold a conversation about viticulture and not be completely full of it. That's a good enough start for me.

'Moving Day'

Friday was a rough day. We all know the pleasure of carrying a case of wine, it's a little heavy for some, not at all for others and worth making somebody else do it for the wise and wimpy. One thing that makes it all worthwhile is knowing that once you get that wine to its final resting place, the pleasure of drinking it is the only 'work' left. Unfortunately, when you know that you will never be swirling, smelling, and swallowing the contents, the boxes tend to get just a little bit heavier. When you multiply that by 8 hours and stairs, one starts appreciating inventions like the elevator and escalator with newfound respect. What started as a nice morning workout turned into an intense full day work out as we not only loaded two pallets of wine (56 cases each) but also re-boxed many others, organized the wine library (which meant more bending, lifting, opening, marking, sliding, and cursing) and then stored the tens of cases that would need to be relabelled at some point in the future. What I took away from the situation was essential importance of taking short 2 min. mate breaks, thinking twice so that you only have to move once, and the handiness of a nice fat sharpie to negate any confusion. More importantly, however, was that I worked with Bernardo (assistant winemaker) and Alberto (the rock that gets things done around here) throughout the day and we all get along really well. I think I impressed them with my mate-drinking-slang-using-joke-administering abilities and they seemed to have accepted me as an equal as opposed to just another American intern.

Not a very impressive picture, but I now have a new appreciation for yet another step in the vineyard to wine glass process.

It's All About the Grapes, and Wearing Pants

Calle Bodega does not own grapes except for those that I stumble into when I walk out my door and which the dogs eat. The benefit being that one can source fruit from all over the area, depending on what your desired result may be, and that a spring frost or summer hail storm won't ruin your year before it has even begun. The downside being that you are relying on others to manage the vineyards and don't ever really have complete control over the finished product.

Guillermo or Guille as he is affectionately called here is the Agronomist, or vineyard guy. We set out a 9am to check on all the vineyards we are sourcing from here in Lujan de Cuyo and one in Maipu, which is another mini AVA more to the East. The specifics of what we saw and what I asked him about isn't really content for a blog. In broad terms, we talked about climates and altitudes, soil characteristics and water drainage, trellis systems and canopy management, leaf shapes and berry/cluster sizes, the sun and its impact on vineyard orientation, and other fascinating things to anybody that loves to dig deep into terroir. What impressed me about Guille more than his knowledge, was the willingness and enjoyment he took in explaining it all to me. I hit him with a barrage of questions like I would through water balloons in summer as a youngster. i was amazed with the ease that he handled it and after a few hours, I grew silent, too exhausted to ask more questions. I was ingesting too much info, I had mental overload and if it weren't for the dozen empanadas we picked up for lunch, I may have had to pound a couple mates (it's tea people!).

Aside from talking and driving, we also did a lot of walking, plucking berries and gnoshing on them the whole way. We wanted to get an idea not only of flavors and sugar levels, but also the maturity of the tannins which can be done by chewing on the seeds, the crunchier and nuttier in flavor being riper. We walked through Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. For each vineyard we armed ourselves with little zip lock bags and beging taking random berries. The key is to take a broad range, from all sides of the cluster and from both sides of the vines in more or less equal proportions. This is to ensure that you aren't just taking the ripest of least ripe berries and therefore left with half true data. Unfortunately, I didn't arm myself with obvious: long pants, long sleeves, and a hat. By the 6th or 7th vineyard, any living prickly plant in Mendoza had found its way onto my socks and boots. I don't know if it smelled my American blood, but I assure you that Guille was in a much better/cleaner state than myself. Lesson learned.

It was barbaro (Argentine for awesome) to see so many different vineyards in a day. For the first time I got a sense for the life of a vineyard. Some were ironed flat and lifeless, surely the sign of lots of chemicals and unhealthy soil. Others had been turned over recently and contained a happy little ecosystem of various insects and birds. Some had drip irrigation while others dug trenches and opened the flood gates to allow water to pass through the vines. It almost became common sense that healthier vines and better wine should come from lively vineyards as opposed to those that looked like Chernobyl. I can't say that I've been blown away by a lot of organic wines, but if I plant a vineyard, it will be as organic as possible.

By 5pm we were back at the winery and headed straight to the lab to analyze our loot. We smashed up the berries in the bags and ran through Brix (sugar content), pH and tA (total acidity). With Sergio (head winemaker), the three of us looked at each grapes' color, tasted the juice, and talked about picking dates. Kirk (the owner) may try to use this info as a bargaining chip, since these Argentines can be quite savvy and difficult when it comes to negotiations. He brought in one of the growers to show him that his grapes lacked intensity in color and that he should stop watering the vineyard. One trick for the growers is to water up until harvest to swell up the grapes and thus, their weight. Winemakers demand that watering stops before harvest so that nothing gets diluted--a classic tug o' war.

Needless to say, a day well spent. Long and tiring as well, but I took a lot more away from my day in the vineyards than prickly weeds and a sun burned nose.

New Digs

As interesting as the story of how I came to be here is (check out the documentary Boom Varietal-The Rise of Malbec, which I appeared in), there is too little time and too much to write about to even consider going into it. Let's just begin now. The details of my internship here at Calle Bodega are simple, room and board for work. I'm heading down the path of an aspiring winemaker and feeling the need to make up for lost time (see my Spanish Vagabond blog), I decided that two harvests per year is not only a great way to get that needed experience, but also a way to see how things are done elsewhere and have a more well rounded perspective as a whole. They could use a free hand so it's a win-win situation. I am living on site, that is to say, that when I wake up in the morning, I look out my window and see the winery and the few planted rows of Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon, it's pretty cool. I have my own cozy little room and a little kitchen at my disposal although I presume most of my meals will be made for me. As is the case during harvest, the idea of schedules and hours are basically thrown out the window, especially when payment isn't an issue and you live on-site. I came here to work, I don't think I'll have a problem getting what I wished for.

Disclaimer: I don't know what to expect from this blog. I don't know if I'll keep it going through the whole harvest. It may be full of errors. Too technical for some, not technical enough, to matter of fact, or just plain boring. I'd like to share with all of you that are interested as to the expierence I'm having and also have something to read 30 years down the road as I'm drinking some of my 107 pt. wine (with the way rating systems are going, I'm not sure 100 will keep our attention forever. There must become something newer and better, right?) and feel like reminiscing. Ahhhh, to dream....