Crush is the process of crushing grapes for wine making. This typically occurs at this time of year, but our last two years, due to late snows, had us beginning at the end of September to middle of October. At the winery where I work, the first grapes crushed are the Chardonnay. Let’s take a peek at what happens during crush! If you click on any of the photos you will be able to see the detail a bit better!
They bring in the grapes in plastic or wood containers that hold between 850 – 1,000 pounds of grapes. They are filled to over the top!
Crate overflowing with Chardonnay
Aren’t they pretty?
As the containers come in they are lifted one at a time into a V-shaped vessel that has an auger that controls the rate that the grapes drop onto the sorting table.
In they go!
This is what the inside of this vessel looks like with the Chardonnay.
Inside with the auger
They drop onto the sorting table where any leaf debris or bad clusters are pulled out.
The grapes get hand sorted and then go off to the destemmer
The lower part of the above photo shows the grapes heading off to the de-stemmer. Here are the stems as they drop out of the de-stemmer.
The remaining stems
From here the Chardonnay goes into the press. As the press squeezes the juice from the grapes, the juice pours out into a tray where it goes to the tanks.
Chardonnay juice right out of the press
The bottom side of the press
Once in the tank a really good yeast gets added and then fermentation begins.
The tanks
The residue goes back out to the field to compost
The Chardonnay in the tanks? It is now on its way to making a lovely wine!
Life in the Foothills 
This makes me want some wine right now! Nice photos to go with the post… You should submit some to Canon’s Project Imaginat10n: https://www.longliveimagination.com
Thanks! Will look into it!
Great post Barb, I would like a couple of cases when the process is complete, please.
Best,
Conor
I will hold on to the cases for you Conor. You will have to come and pick them up. They should be ready in about a year. If you take too long to swing by, I will not be able to guarantee that the cases will be full, or that even a bottle is left….
Now I have a good excuse for a trip…
🙂
Reblogged this on All Food, All Drinks, All Love and commented:
As I attempt to learn more about wine and wine-making, claiming no real knowledge, I quite enjoyed this post from a lovely fellow blogger. Oh how I want to go to the wine country- any wine country! Vineyards are gorgeous!
Awesome, thanks for sharing!!!
Great photos and write up of the process. I’m sure many people never get to see the entire process from beginning to the juice being placed in tanks, thanks.
La vendemmia… love it, and would love to see it up close! Unfortunately the hot weather has meant that it took place early in Italy this year so our Autumn trip to Tuscany which was meant to catch the tail end of the Chianti vendemmia won’t quite make it. I’m sure we’ll enjoy tasting the wine though! Thanks for showing this.
You are welcome LoveFromItaly! Thank you for your comment, and if you are ever in our neck of the woods in the Sierra Foothills be sure to come and try the wine of over 60 wineries!
Oh that sounds heavenly… don’t tempt me!
Wow! This is wonderful! Thank you for the time it took to organize and share all of these photos and pair them with a great narrative. I now have a new computer and look forward to getting it home and working on future posts. I’ll work on an answer to this one and write a post about harvesting a shrimp pond!
I loved this! Thanks again!
Z
Would love to see a shrimp harvest! Thanks for the comment Z!