Improvement for a room

If all goes according to plan, we’ll be turning 5 different grapes into wine this year. And that’s not even counting the 2-3 seignées I want to make from those grapes, nor the “piquette” (a “second wine” that Garagiste George pioneered last year) I’d like to try from at least one of them. Are our eyes bigger than our gullets? To which I respond, are we not Garagistes? It’s going to be a busy year, and I for one can’t wait to wade out into it.

But because it’ll be just a dozen or so of us staring down this potential tsunami of wine, I’ve been trying to break my usual pattern of wasting the days leading up to harvest simply rubbing my hands together and licking my lips, and instead actually trying to get ready. So I’ve been re-arranging the deck chairs on our Titanic enterprise with even smoother sailing as my goal.

Um… all aboard?

The overall goal of my tinkering has been to create a clear, uninterrupted space in the basement that can house up to 3 one-ton fermenters at a time, all in a row with ample space around each. I also wanted to reclaim both basement windows so we could crush in the driveway and funnel fruit directly through either of them into waiting fermenters below.

To do that, I moved the lab and the sink to the north wall, re-plumbing and re-wiring to suit. As a bonus, I moved our washer/dryer to the other side of the wall against which the lab now nestles, providing me another opportunity for plumbing fun and my wife an impermeable barrier between her clean clothes and the various wine explosions that tend to… tint the joy of crush.

Garagiste James is working on perfecting his Fruit Chute™, so with luck and a lot of cleaning, we may actually be in pretty good shape when the fruit comes. Just make sure you bring a life preserver.

A mid-construction view from the lab into what will be uninterrupted fermentation space — and then piles of crap the rest of the year. Wait, did I just say that out loud?

1 comment

1 Comment so far

  1. JP October 2nd, 2008 1:17 pm

    And oh what a cute fruit chute it was…

    But what is wine making without a bit of “plonk” contingency planning:

    Our Backup Plan

Leave a reply