It’s Nice To Have Help

As a one-person operation, I sometimes need some extra arms (like eight of them) to get everything done. So it’s nice to be in a winery where there are other people around to help out especially on the days when I am crushing grapes or pressing wine. However on Monday I was lucky enough to get some help from my winemaking assistant – Oscar. Oscar had the day off from school, so he came with me to the winery where he was able to help me with the punch downs. Here he is punching down the St. Mark's Vineyard Syrah that we picked on the 4th (see previous post).

He then helped me sample the fermenting must so that we could check on the sugars and see how the fermentations where doing.

Finally, it was nice to have his help when I performed a sensory evaluation of the fermenting wine.

Please note, Oscar didn’t actually taste the wine, but he did smell it. And, his verdict? “Dad it smells like raspberries. I think you should bottled it already!” Well, maybe not so soon – it still has to finish it’s fermentation and barrel age for quite some time before it’s bottled, but at least it has Oscar’s seal of approval!