I'm now an official resident of Sonoma County. Maybe my gypsy wanderlust will end here!
Working in small teams, our Fall Practices Viticulture class spent Thursday morning in the vineyard making a Powdery Mildew assessment on one block of vines. Nasty little white masses you have to look for with hand magnifiers and that can colonize entire surfaces of the grapes and leaves and last the whole season if not stopped. Fortunately, we were able to report to the management company that takes care of our vineyard that we saw very little mildew. We did, however, see a lot of sunburn and shrivel (raisins!) due to the record-high temperatures the past few weeks.
Thursday afternoon - Winery Practices - my favorite class! This week we learned the specifics of white wine processing: crushing methods, separating the juice, fermentation, additives, clarification (racking), aging and preparing for bottling. We then got to "play" with the machines (sans grapes of course at this point) in the winery - the receiving hopper, the destemmer/crusher, the must pump and various hoses and fittings. Harvest season is right around the corner and Shone will need lots of help with this season's crush - can't wait to volunteer!
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