I am still pumping but some tanks have been pressed off. Everyone is very tired but the hours are getting lesser. Everyone is very done with pumping but it must be done. Sometimes if we are very tired we dig the caps. This is like a punch down which mixes up the cap but it does not break as many berries. It is done instead of pumping and is a little faster since we can have all the pumps running and people doing this.
A fermenter is going off! One of the 5 ton tanks has started the most active part of fermentation. It is quite exciting to see. The sugar levels will drop very fast during this stage. The tank will also get much higher temperature, sometimes up to 95 degrees!
I have punched a couple tanks down too. At Beaux Freres they do a thing called POPs which means pump over punches. A punch down is normally done without someone pumping but when the grapes are suspended in the juice there will be less damage done. The goal as always is to not break the grapes.
Much more fruit came in than expected so the tanks are everywhere. The packaging room, the garage, the refrigerator truck, the tasting room, the sorting area.
The fermenters are in the garage as we have run out of space in the fermenter room and the outside.