At the end of the day when we were finishing up the remontage, Pj said now that the wine was in the cellar it felt real and somehow more complete. "Now the wine was in his home. A very expensive home for wine." After the grapes were all in their new home, there was an extensive cleanup and the the first Remontage, called the homoginazation remontage. This process takes wine from a hookup on the bottom of the tank, runs it through a specially made enologic pump, which sends the new wine gently back to the top, over the skins and whole berries to even out the temperature. PJ and I didnt finish the first day until 9:30 pm, still knowing that we had another 15 hour day on Thursday. Thursday came quickly and we were out of bed and in the vineyards by 7 knowing that we had to push very hard as there was an afternoon rain forcasted. Luckily the rain never came and we picked the rest of the vineyards and filled the other two large barrels with bright red, very very sweet grape juice. Wine in its infancy.
While we were doing all of this work I wondered how many people who drink wine really understand how much work goes into the final product for a small producer. This is an entire years work for one or two days in which everything must go well.
We filled three, 3000 liter barrels which will translate into about 7500 bottles of finished wine, ready for release in about 5 years. Delayed gratification for sure, but everything I do here makes me appreciate the process more and helps me to better understand what it is I love about wine so much.
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