Gentle Grape Handling
Every winery has a heart beat. This beat is determined by the combination of the terrain, foot print, equipment and winemaking philosophy of that particular winery. It is a rare opportunity to be able to have so much influence in creating that heart beat. Gentle wine and grape handling is a key fundamental for any quality wine. The basic decision comes down to the choice between process time and sizing the equipment to your maximum daily production. Here at J. Rickards Winery we have a very small daily production need. Therefore, processing time was really not a factor when it came to picking out equipment. I was very fortunate not to have any limitations in this regard. Hence, I went into this decision process with a production rate scenario of 1 to 2 tons per hour. This allows us to process up to 10 tons comfortably in one day. Currently, our largest lot was only 5.5 tons so we have plenty room to grow in the future. Many wineries have there hands tied by the tonnage and the logistical schedule of their vineyards, so they are limited in their options for equipment that allows gentle fruit handling. As a general rule, wineries above 20,000 cases per year are unable to process grapes slow enough to ensure gentle handling and manual quality control. Many wineries choose to be more automated to save on labor and we know there is no substitute for visual and manual quality control. Besides, it is the basis of being a hand-crafted product. Since our daily production need is so small we are able to really slow down our processing rate to insure perfect gentle handling. Our goal is to get the berry off the stem as gently as possible without breaking the skin, shearing the stem, or crushing the seeds. In addition, much effort has been made to make sure only grapes get to the fermentation tank without all of the leaves, stems, petioles, shot berries and any other unmentionable items that can and do get into the fermentor at larger facilities.

We start by hand picking into half-ton bins and not over filling them so the bottom grapes don't get squashed prematurely. Many wineries have gone to machine harvested fruit to save on labor, but this creates an incredible amount of juice that can get oxidized and brown while it waits hours to get to the fermentor. The next step slowly dumps the bin onto an angled conveyor where the MOG (materials other than grapes) are sorted out before going to the destemmer. The destemmer is variable speed to gently dislodge the grape from the stem. It is important not to shear the stems or leave a tip on the grape. Stem tannins have harsh flavors and are both bitter and astringent. This is a very important option because not all varieties dislodge from the stem in the same manner. Some varieties, like Petite Sirah and Pinot Noir have thick stems, others like Zinfandel and Cabernet can be brittle. This is why a variable speed destemmer is so important to be able to slow down the speed for some of the more fragile varieties. For a final insurance for any non-grape material we have our vibrating sorting table. At this table the fruit is dropped from the destemmer onto a grate with small slits where the small shot berries and juice fall through and the whole berries slowly move down the table. At this point we have people pick out by hand any undesirable material that has gotten through the system. The final nuance of our facility is that we use the elevation difference at our winery to drop the fruit directly into the top of our tanks which are on a level below the sorting table. This eliminates the need for a pump to move the must which can crack and mash the seeds releasing very bitter compounds into the wine. This gives us complete control over the condition of the grapes going to the fermentor from the pickers to the last crushed berry. Looking towards the future we are very happy with our initial assessment and purchases but will continue to make subtle changes to improve and streamline our process.