Les Blog

Our first fruit from Coyote Canyon flows down the Columbia to us Saturday, Oct 1: the Pillsbury Dough Boy of grapes, the rolly Merlot!

You know the drill: Matt will head out with someone at dawn to grab the fruit around 9am while it’s still cold. I’ll be back by 1:30 or so and wiggle the truck and trailer back up the driveway, then try sealing the bin so the fruit stays cold til the festivities start.

We’ll set up the destemmer and the shoot down into the basement, flick the switch, and we’re off. Once we’re all cleaned up, we eat and drink, toasting the first crush.

• Need 8-12 people total (including Matt)
• Wear shoes or boots you can get wet
• Bring a post-crush snack to share if you’re able

PLEASE keep in mind that there will still be 3-4 more crushes ahead for us, and we need adequate staffing at all of them (not just the first one). I encourage you to attend more than one (this is the funnest part of the winemaking experience, after all), but if everyone can watch the signups to make sure we’ve never got a skeleton crew processing our fruit, that helps me immensely.