It's here! Our first official day of "crush" will be August 27th, when we harvest our old-vine Chenin Blanc. We have a light crop this year, due to various quirks in the weather, which may help to explain the very early harvest for some of our neighbors. As far as we're concerned, we're right on schedule, and things are looking good. Berries and clusters are small, so we have high hopes for flavor intensity for this vintage.

Check out our calendar, below, to keep up with our progress in the vineyards. And if you're in the neighborhood, come in and taste some free-run juice! But, be prepared - we may hand you a grape knife and send you out in the vineyard to help our crew! Happy Crushing!

See our 2008 Vintage Update for more information on the growing conditions this year.

August | September | October

Glossary:

Batonnage: Hand-stirring the sediment that has settled in the barrel to mix it into the aging wine. This will continue for months.

Cold fermentation: We cold ferment most delicate whites to enhance the fruity flavor. Cold fermentation will make the Chenin Blanc wine smell and taste very much like Chenin Blanc grape juice. The yeast works slowly in the cold environment, much like trying to get bread dough to rise in the refrigerator.

Crushed: The hand-picked grape clusters are fed into a machine called a crusher-stemmer. Crushing is a misleading term because it implies that we smash the grapes. Smashing them will cause bitterness. Instead, rubber-tipped batons gently knock the grapes off of their stems. The grapes are then run through soft rubber rollers to break their skins and release the juice so we can begin fermentation.

Dry:  The opposite of sweet; the yeast has used up all of the fermentable sugar and the fermentation is over.

Fermentation:Yeast, either native or added to the juice, converts the sugar in the grapes to alcohol, carbon-dioxide gas and heat.

Filtration: In general the term refers to clarifying the wine by pumping it through a medium such as cellulose, diatomaceous earth or a synthetic membrane, leaving fine particles behind. At this stage of production, the lees filtration is a very loose filtration designed to remove dust and grape solids that may impede fermentation or contribute off odors. 

Inoculated: Geoff adds the yeast.

Malo-lactic fermentation (ML): Lactic-acid bacteria is added to convert tart, malic acid to soft lactic acid. Diacetyl is a by-product of the malo-lactic fermentation, which contributes a buttery flavor and a bit of weight to the wine. It is most often associated with Chardonnay (but not at Goosecross). Virtually all red wines undergo malo-lactic fermentation, but the effects are not nearly as noticeable as they are with whites. Even though it's a conversion it's often called a secondary fermentation, because it usually follows the primary fermentation.

Pressing: The press separates the liquid from the solid. It's like a big strainer. Once the wine has drained off, pressure is applied to the skins and seeds remaining in the press to get more of the liquid out, hence the term "press."

Pump-over: As the skins rise to the top of the tank during fermentation, Geoff mixes them back in to the fermenting wine by circulating wine from the bottom over the top. He will do this several times a day until the fermentation is over in about a week or 10 days.

Racked: Solids have been allowed to settle and the clear wine moved into another tank.

Stop fermentation: Geoff chills the wine so much that the yeast goes dormant and the fermentation is stopped before the wine is dry, leaving unfermented, residual sugar in the
finished wine.