Harvest! What a swell time to be in the custom crush business in Southern Oregon. Berry weights are on track and yields are up, making this the third consecutive vintage with plus-size yields and excellent quality.

We had a bit of wildfire smoke in the Rogue Valley this summer but, apparently, nothing like in 2013. The good news is preliminary test crushing and analysis has shown that smoke taint probably won’t be much of an issue. We’ve already crushed about 30% of our total contracted fruit and everything that’s come in has been beautiful. Clients seem genuinely pleased that we work hard to identify their needs and desires, then execute the detailed plans.

But, hey, what’s harvest without a few curveballs? Crushing in a construction zone has been, uh, interesting. I got barked at (justifiably) by our safety guy for not wearing a seatbelt on the forklift. I even got zapped a little bit by our crusher because of a bad ground on the electrical connection. And our shiny new top-of-the-line pump arrived defective and the supplier had to overnight new electronics so we could fix it. No worries….all in a looooong day’s work.

The best news is the fruit this year is stunning and the ferments are as well. I have a vat of Pinot noir right now that smells like strawberries and fills the cellar with a downright intoxicating aroma. And the crush line and sorting system, including the optical sorter, are running like a champ.

The biggest laugh so far? A local winery used local cold storage for its grapes, unbeknownst to me. So, when a huge truckload showed up unannounced, let’s just say I was a little confused and worried at first. “Just roll with it,” became that day’s mantra.

People ask me all the time, how is working in Southern Oregon different from past harvests in California? Truthfully, there’s not much difference. No knock on California, but it’s fair to say the people I work with here are just nicer. Let’s crush!

Woooooah! It’s been a roller-coaster ride since I signed on at Naumes Crush and Fermentation early this year. Now, the hard work of countless people comes together in our first crush.

The facility is 90% complete and we’re fully prepped for the season. With more than 100 tons of grapes on the books already, we’re well on the way to being a key part of the skyrocketing Southern Oregon wine scene. We look forward to working with current clients and have capacity for others if this season produces the large harvest expected.

We pressed the first grapes on September 1, a three-ton lot of Sauvignon blanc for Upper Five Vineyards. Finally, we could put the state-of-the-art press through its paces, and, happily, everything performed flawlessly.

The full sorting process was tested the next day, with four tons of Pinot noir from Naumes Vineyards. We had the entire sorting line set up: grapes went through whole-cluster sorting to the destemmer, berry sorting post-destemmer, then through the optical sorter.

I was pretty stoked about how well the optical sorter performed. The quality of the grapes exiting was excellent, with hardly any MOG (material other than grapes). This equipment will let us start fermenting grapes at an unparalleled level of cleanness. Then some get transferred to two-ton, open top fermentation tanks, where they cold soak for a few days.

Oh, yeah; I’m looking forward to our inaugural season, helping clients create their ideal wines. Let’s crush!