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Here and There…Now and Then |
Pressing Grapes
Well, the grapes arrived after 11:00 PM last night, long after we had gone home. We went back today and helped for a little while. Cathy and Dorothy both jumped in with both feet. I fished out stems and took pictures. We were only there a relatively short while but they were nearly done with all 5,000 pounds when we left.
In this picture, Cathy and Dorothy are crushing grapes while Anna, Greg, and Greg remove stems before carrying the bins to the basement.
Chardonel Grapes
I spent some time in the Rocklands Farm vineyard this morning, as well as having a meat photo shoot with Dorothy for their livestock business. Harvest is underway and it appears it will be a good one. These are Chardonel Grapes, which are the result of the cross, ‘Seyval’ x ‘Chardonnay’, made in 1953. It is “distinguished by its superior wine quality combined with high productivity and cold hardiness superior to its acclaimed parent” (i.e. ‘Chardonnay’).
I came early in the day hoping to get pictures with the sun as a low angle. Sadly it was cloudy when I got here. Also, if I had come about a half hour earlier I would have been treated to a wonderful sunrise but I was too late for that. After the meat photo shoot the clouds were gone. The sun was much higher in the sky but the light on the grapes was good and I spent another hour or so in the vineyard. If you haven’t been to Rocklands, I recommend it, both for the wine and for the atmosphere. Tell ‘em Henry sent you.