Harvest 2016

Sep 10, 2016News

Hand harvesting Syrah 2016

 

grape pickers syrah

hand harvesting

At Domaine La Tasque we harvested our Syrah yesterday. We harvested by hand under beautiful blue skies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hand harvesting Syrah grapes into small bins

Grapes loaded onto Simon’s mad machine

The pre-harvest debriefing was important as the grapes in one portion of the vineyard weren’t ripe so pickers needed to know which vines to pick and which to leave to ripen for another week or so.

what grapes to pick, what not to pick

Harvest debriefing

The quality of the grapes is excellent. However it has been a very dry year and a thirsty vine means smaller berries and lower yields.  Our Syrah crop is about half of last year’s.

 

In the vineyard ..

 

hand picked Syrah

healthy grapes

vendangeurs

grape pickers

In the winery

 

The small berry size meant that we adapted the way we process the fruit once it comes into the winery. We don’t normally crush the grapes but in 2016 it was essential to liberate the juice.

Destemming and crushing

 

Destemming

Destemming Syrah grapes

Crushing grapes pre fermentation

Crushing syrah grapes

Pigeage

And once the grapes were in the tank we use pigeage or punching down to extract colour and flavour.

 

punching down

Pigeage Syrah

Pigeag

Simon punching down Syrah