Making Wine with Gardner
|
Our buddy Gardner Grout is a winemaker. Only problem is, he lives in a suburban neighborhood called Palo Alto, so he can't do nearly the scale he wants to. This year, he got 1.5 tons of grapes and invited us over for the crush. HERE's what that looks like. |
 |
 |
This device is a CRUSHER. His job is to crush the skins of the grapes without crushing the seeds also (which makes the wine bitter). |
| The crusher going full bore- a couple of people feeding it grapes, 1 guy (Chuck) emptying the output bucket, and someone else to manage and keep everyone's glass full. |  |
 |
George tries his hand at feeding grapes- fortunately this is a hard job to mess up. |
| At the end, everything goes into the hopper- good to the last drop. |  |
 |
The grapes, all mashed up. |
| But wait- we don't want them to ferment too quickly, so add 40lb of dry ice to the mix... |  |
 |
... and stir well. |
| Happy helpers ;-) |  |
 |
Two weeks later, the fermentation is done. We returned for the pressing, which is basically squeezing the wine from the grapes. |
|
HERE's the presser. It works on water pressure. You basically fill the device with fermented grape pulp. |
 |
 |
Then you lock the lid down and turn on the hose to pressurize it and squeeze the wine out. |
| Since Gardner is a pro at this, he rented a small pump to pump the wine directly into the barrels in his basement winery. |  |
 |
Then you repeat the process a bunch of times until the big fermentation vat is empty. |
| Good to the last drop. |  |
 |
Is it wine yet...? Well, not quite. |
| The pressing crew- George, Gardner, Joe and Jay. |  |