helping out

i was lucky enough to be on family vacation in occidental when the russian river pinot harvest started for 2009. our buddy alan baker invited me to the FIRST estate harvest at arista. what an experience! to see the McWilliams family gathered to see the first fruits of their labor was very inspiring. the fruit was amazing! clean, small clusters and delicious. classic RRV pinot. the family and crew paraded the fruit down west side road to moshin for crushing. despite a few hiccups, including 2 bins falling off the truck, the sort and crush went great.

7am at arista

the haul

the next day was spent helping alan and serena sorting their equally beautiful floodgate pinot fruit. 4-tons was sorted in 20% of the time it took us to sort 1-ton of our fruit last year. it was very cool to see these two going for it!

the sorting on deck circle

many contacts were made, technical advise given and stories told. hopefully next year we can be a bit more involved in this region. time will tell. there is definitely something to be said about lending a hand to friends when it comes to wine making (hint hint).

rrv pinot