Flaherty Wines

We pressed out the last two bins last weekend, which means that harvest has officially ended. Our scheduled cellar hands canceled at the last minute, so we had a family winemaking day. (Don’t all families do that?) I just can’t say enough about our new press! It simply would not have been possible to get everything done with the old smaller press, whereas the new press made short work of the two bins, even considering that half our workforce was half-sized and only marginally motivated (and called it a day after one bin). Ed and I were then able to press out the Syrah on our own.

The Carmenére was just off-dry when we pressed it out. It seems to have gone dry in barrel this week, but we’ll have to wait for the lab analysis to know for sure.

Overall, I’d say the harvest went very well. We crushed the same amount of fruit as last year (about eight tons), but the whole process seemed more tranquilo, more orderly. I remember being so tired at the end of last year’s harvest, but this year was a breeze. I suppose that has a lot to do with the new equipment, and we had a lot of cool fermentations, which helped take the edge off the urgency of the season. Now we just have to see how the wines develop with some time in barrel.