nebbiolo

Story of The Nebbiolo

The story of the Nebbiolo is like this. I volunteered
to assist with the crush at Belle Marie, our local
winery in Escondido, CA. I arrived at 6 a.m. to find
an 18 wheeler refrigerated truck being unloaded of
its fruit. Unloading the 40+lbs. lugs were Dave and
his wife (owners of Witch Creek Winery in
Carlsbad) and members of the San Diego Amateur
Winemakers Association. There was a mix-up in
Dave's shipment ... he had been delivered a couple
of tons of extra fruit. If I had had a pick-up truck, I
would have taken some of the fruit home with me.

Mick of Belle Marie loads up a pallet, and with his
fork lift ascends the hill to his crush bad. The
professional winery has tools and equipment that
we beginners lack (fork lifts, powerful crushers,
steel tanks, electronic pumps) but the process of
making the wine is basically the same. And, the
dynamics of having one's spouse involved in the
process are all too familiar (it's a family activity for
the pros as well).

Each lug of grapes weighs about 45 lbs. The height
of the crush bin is about 5 feet, and it's an effort in
weight lifting to lift the lugs and dump them into the
bin, where the fruit is gently ground by wheels and
sucked into the machine. Mick's daytime job is
surgeon (he doesn't drink coffee -- my guess is to
keep his hands steady) and the doctor's hands
guide the fruit into the hole of moving parts, picking
grape leaves before they are mashed into the mix.
Mary uses a pitchfork to gather emptied stems that
are spit out by the machine, and Erik (who recently
purchased Orphelia Winery) is helping out lifting
and dumping lugs at a rate twice as fast as I can.

The must is forced from the crusher down a plastic
pipe into either a bin, or a fermentation tank.

The process is made easier on another day, when
the truck from Mexico backs carefully to the crush
pad, so you can "pour" the grapes into the crusher
from the back of the truck. The top of the crusher is
about level with the truck's floor, so less lifting is
required. I sit on my knees, Samurai style,
dumping 40 lbs. lugs of fruit into the crusher, while
the Surgeon's hands gently guide it. Fortunately,
I'm not pulled into the crusher by the grapes, and
Mick's hands survive for another round of surgery.
What turns out to be a "good exercise" after a while
becomes tiring. It is a fun task for the day, because
of the novelty, and I appreciate the folks whose
occupation calls for such lifting on a daily basis.
The work is repetitive, and the mind wanders.

Thick clumps of purple grapes come tumbling out
of the plastic crate into a steel container and as if
sucked under by a rip-tide are pulled down into the
shoot where giant spinning wheels break their
skins releasing sticky, sugary pulp. Watch your
hands, Mick. There, there. Don't fall into the bin
yourself. What a bloody mess that would be. Pull
out that green leaf. Got you. Make the wine less
bitter. Don't dump the fruit in all at once. Grapes will
back up. There you go, pour them in at a steady
pace. Hand off the empty. Lug a full one. Is that why
they call it a lug? Heavy it is. Tilt it over, gently now.
Thick lumps of purple grapes, pressed together,
tumble into the bin. Watch your hands, Mick. Pull out
that grape leaf. Grape leaves make wonderful
grape leaves -- Greek cooking. Boil them, then add
a little rice, salt, meat and lemon. Don't fall into that
hole. Worse than quicksand. And bloodier would
be. If I fell in. Hand off the empty. Inhale, lift up
another, and pour.

The crushed grapes and grape pulp next travel
through a line unseen (inside the crushing
machine) mashed by turning handles that pull out
stems from the clumps, spitting out a steady
stream of stems to the ground which are scooped
up by a pitchfork and given to the nursery next door
to use as mulch. The remaining mixture of skins,
grapes, pulp and thick juice -- so sweet to the taste
-- is pulled out of the machine by vacuum forces
then forced down a flexible plastic tube longer than
a dragon to the fermenter. When making their exit
the grape must is expelled out the tube making
noises like the moving of bowels after drinking
contaminated water in the land of Montezuma.

In a matter of two hours we're able to crush the fruit
and get the place cleaned up. Some of the crushed
grapes have fallen to the ground. I scope them up
with my hands telling Mary, "With these grapes you
can make wine for the tasting room -- don't think of
it as an expense, think of it as free!" Free tasting
wine. Says Mick, "Our wines are handcrafted." They
are indeed.

Sept. 30, 2006 -- One year later. Ink indigo liquid
is siphoned from a 15-gallon carboy into a green
Bordeaux bottle then capped with a cork. A sip
yields much pleasure. We have produced a keeper.