It's harvest time and the crush is on.
For small wineries it’s everything that you can image. Winemakers scramble for picking crews in the stinted season, promises are made, old friendships are rekindled and brought to bear fruit in the scramble for just the right moment.
And that is it: the right moment; because the winemaker waits for exact sugar levels to predict the outcome of the vintage. In these closing days of summer he can be seen in the vineyard, head raised toward the sun, squinting through his refractometer like a ship's captain searching for safe passage. A drop of juice squeezed upon the telescope-like instrument reveals the brix. Too little and there isn’t a chance of greatness, too much and the wine turns “hot” with alcohol.
At last he gives the word, arranges for the picking crew, assembles the extra manpower needed for the frenzied process and prepares for the long, hectic hours of the Crush.
Meat and skin turned to "Must": the slurry of berries dumped, by the ton, from sticky gondolas full of ripe amber and purple grapes, stems, sweat, ants and anything thing else cut by the migrant worker's sharp knives into the crusher-de-stemmer and pumped into the cellar.
Some varietals flow directly to the fermentor, others first go to the press, where free-run juice pours from the bottom and the mangled berries are pressed, just so, leaving behind a heap of grape corpses called, pomace.
After the crew leaves, in the quiet wan light of a long day, he mixes a batch of dry yeast in warm water waking the cells, reminding them of their impending responsibility. They are alive in every sense of the word and their task is no small undertaking, however simple it may be. Their obligation is only to eat and thrive. Within that colony of cooperation, a miraculous transformation takes place. Devouring sugar, the colony does two important things: belch and eliminate.
Their burps are CO2, the stars of Champagne.
Their waste is alcohol, the stuff of dreams and nightmares.
Another byproduct of fermentation is heat but it can be deadly to both the colony and the winemaker. This is one of the many terrors of the crush: a “Stuck” fermentation. If the heat rises to an intolerable temperature the yeast colony will die and restarting the process is all but hopeless. Even if successful, it will taint the wine, at best, preventing greatness, at worst, destroying a career.
TMD
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Must
When the September vineyards are heavy with fruit,
in the shallow hills
beyond our town,
I think of the winery.
Autumn afternoons
in the cellar tasting wine;
migrant workers with dark tan faces
drinking cold beer.
The crush:
sticky berries
drawing bees
in the fading light.
Meat and skin crushed to must.
Dark plums and wild roses
staining my past
with vintage memories.
—Sean Reynolds
