I am working at a vineyard and winery in the Finger Lakes

Sunday June 3, 2007
10.39pm
Finger Lakes region
New York State, USA

I am working at a vineyard and winery in the Finger Lakes

I started working at a vineyard and winery several weeks ago. Today I collected soil samples from the vineyard. They will be sent to a commercial laboratory for analysis to determine if there are enough nutrients in the soil for the vines. In this area the following grape varieties are grown: Vignoles, Seyval Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet Franc, and Lemberger.

Soil coring tool and sample bags in the vineyard

Coring tool filled with soil sample after coring

Primarily I have been helping with bottling. Tomorrow we will bottle Vignoles. Bottling wine is a matter of keeping a multi-step process running smoothly. The wine, which has fermented over the winter and is now ready to drink, is stored in a very large tank. The wine is pumped from the tank through a series of filters to a bottling machine. The machine is automated. At one end a person loads the empty bottles onto a bottle-width conveyor. The conveyor takes the bottles to be filled with wine and corked. Next the machine places foil capsules over the mouth of the bottle and heat-shrinks them in place. Then the bottles are automatically labeled. Lastly, another person takes the bottles as they leave the conveyor, places them in cases, and stacks the cases on a wooden palette to be stored.

View from the vineyard on the rainy afternoon I took the soil samples

I am working at a vineyard and winery in the Finger Lakes