The joy, and pain, of picking wine grapes

Published 2:20 pm Friday, December 14, 2007

I was on my way to Mattawa, a little watering hole about a mile above the Columbia River, 50 miles southeast of Ellensburg. Leaving rainy Western Washington before the sun was up required a 16-ounce triple shot Americano.

Four hours later I was in a sunny, warm and peaceful place. As far as I could see there were vineyards and blue sky. The Wahluke Slope rose above me like a Pendleton blanket folded against the skyline.

It was late September and time to pick grapes to make some wine. The six of us had been here in 2006 about the same time. On our first trip we brought back 800 pounds of cabernet sauvignon grapes, crushed them and carefully got the fermentation process going.

The night before the new harvest, I tasted last year’s vintage from the barrel. It was ruby red and tasted like a good cabernet still needing some time in the barrel. This year we were going to pick 1,000 pounds of cabernet sauvignon, the king of red wine grapes.

The vineyard for this year’s harvest was planted in 2000. The vines were strong now, the cordon and trunks well established. These vines were planted at an angle that corresponded to the prevailing winds, southwest to the northeast. This allows the wind, which blows all the time here, to easily flow through the vineyard. It helps the canopy of the vines on the west side to better shade the grapes clinging underneath, especially in the intense summer sun. Grapes can get sunburned and turn to raisins if they get too much sun.

Steve plucked a grape from a cluster and checked the brix with the refractometer. Brix is a measure of the sugars and acids in the grapes. It indicates maturity and the level of alcohol in the wine to be made. If the brix is 24 to 26 for cabernet sauvignon grapes, the harvest can begin. “Brix is 25!” Steve shouted to the crew. Dick handed each of us a 50-gallon plastic bin. We grabbed a bottle of water and our pruning shears, and the picking began.

These cabernet sauvignon grapes were fat and purple, about the size of a blueberry. They clustered in bunches, big and small, and were very sweet, with a delicious tang of acidity. They looked almost too pretty to pick. There wasn’t a fly or bug to be seen.

I have been told over and over that it’s the grape that makes the wine. The winemaker may have some tricks in the winery, but it takes great grapes to make a great vintage.

Some of the most popular wines in the world are made with cabernet sauvignon grapes, and the best vintages are grown in California, Europe, Australia and Washington.

The Wahluke Slope is home to a vast collection of vineyards. In 2006, the region was designated an American Viticulture Area, a special designation by the federal government to recognize geographic areas as unique grape growing regions in America. Today, more than 5,000 vineyard acres in the Wahluke slope produce red and white wine grapes.

The soil was sandy, dry and hot. It looked like nothing should grow in it. But these cabernet grapes love it, even though it’s poor in nutrients. The tougher the conditions, the heartier the grape will become and the more intense the flavor of the berries will be in the wine.

In the winter they get a good sleep. Without a long dormancy, these vines would wake up in spring in feeble condition, incapable of producing good grapes. Even during the growing season, they get a good night’s rest in the cool evening, shutting down temporarily to preserve the acidity in the grapes.

I am going to need a good night’s rest, I thought, as the mid-morning sun beat down on my pale Western Washington skin.

We picked for three straight hours and filled 20 plastic bins from 95 vines in row number 1 of block 416.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted that a record 131,000 tons of wine grapes would be picked and crushed in fall 2007, beating 2006’s record by 11,000 tons. Washington is now No. 2 behind California in wine grape production (California forecast 3.2 million tons of wine grapes crushed in 2007).

From the way my arms ached, I felt like I had personally picked those extra 11,000 tons to break last year’s record. My mind drifted to thoughts of pizza, pasta and bubbling marinara sauce. A crow circled overhead — most likely checking to see if I would succumb to the heat so he could pick my bones. I was the weakest of the pack picking these vines. Natural selection was at work even in the vineyard.

Even after our haul was picked and loaded, the day was far from over. We rushed back to Camano Island to crush all 1,080 pounds of grapes we had picked that morning. Our Italian-made, hand-cranked destemmer-crusher silently waited our return in my basement.

I followed one of the others back. Somehow last year, when we harvested grapes from this same vineyard, I got lost on the way back home. Really lost. A “short cut” (wrong turn) in Yakima took us to the east entrance of Mount Rainier National Park, 100 miles out of the way.

Seven hours later, we had crushed a half-ton of grapes and filled four 45-gallon fermenters with the “must” (looks like a crushed grape cocktail). We added a few billion yeast cells to the must, and the fermentation began. In a couple of weeks, the yeast will have converted all that sugar to alcohol and then pressing will transform our crush into wine. It will then need a year or more of aging before it can be bottled.

My dream of an Italian dinner came true; my wife had prepared spaghetti and meatballs the day before. Our Sunday harvest ended with our winemaking partners, who are like our family, gathered ‘round the table, feasting and toasting to this year’s harvest.

Michael “Gino” Gianunzio is a local lawyer, wine maker and artist who lives on Camano Island. He can be reached at theislanditalian@yahoo.com.