Berger: It's really an all-year harvest

This week marks the start of the 2014 harvest of wine grapes in California, which most people say is a two-month process.

In fact, harvest time in all areas of the wine world is hectic and filled with many sleepless nights (or weeks!), no time to shave, many heartaches, unplanned problems, and unanticipated costs. And in California it started back in March or even earlier.

When grapes are harvested in August, they must be transported to where they are either pressed or crushed. Then the resulting juice must be placed in tanks to be fermented. It goes without saying that those tanks must be empty.

So what do you do with last year's wine that was stored in those tanks? The tanks are emptied either by putting the wine in barrels, or by bottling it. In each case, a logistical problem pops up.

Tanks need to be cleaned. This isn't easy, since tanks are large and call for a specialized kind of cleaning.

Barrels have one small bunghole into which cleansing agents can be placed, but then they have to be rinsed to get every drop of agent out. As you can imagine, this is a time-consuming chore.

Bottling wine calls for either ownership of a bottling line (expensive) or contracting with a mobile bottler.

In the first case, the bottling line must be operated by people who understand the tricky equipment, which can occasionally look a bit like a Rube Goldberg contraption. And when a bottling line goes down, sometimes they need to have new parts. This puts everyone in a tizzy since ready-to-bottle wine can deteriorate quickly.

In the second case, the mobile bottler must be scheduled tightly. Do not tell the bottler you have 1,000 cases to bottle when you only have 750 – or when you have 1,300. Mobile bottlers do not like last-minute changes.

Then there is the winery cleanup after transferring the wines from the tanks and barrels. Winery sanitation may be the most crucial aspect of wine production. It cannot be emphasized too strongly how crucial this aspect of the game will determine what the end product will be.

Since there are many ways of doing winery sanitation, each with its benefits and drawbacks, the company strategy should be carefully planned and discussed with every member of the team, down to the interns pulling heavy hoses.

The day the first load of grapes comes in from the field, a lot of equipment unused for 10 months will be pressed back into service. Most of it has been cleaned and tested, to be sure, but until that first load of grapes is processed, the winemaker won't be able to determine for sure that all's well.

Then will come the inevitable unanticipated problems: not enough workers showing up for a crucial task to be done right, a truck or other piece of equipment breaking down, injuries, delays in getting key substances from suppliers, the realization that some hose fittings are damaged, family problems, power outages, flat tires, and numerous logistical nightmares.

Even winemakers who have made wine for decades and have planned for many eventualities know that this frenzied period will lead to some near-disasters no one could have anticipated.

So when a San Diego-based friend and wine lover called me in the late 1980s and asked if I could introduce him to a winemaker on a forthcoming harvest trip to Wine Country, my answer was, 'January would be a much better time.'

Wine of the Week: 2012 La Crema Pinot Gris, Monterey ($18) – The aroma displays lovely blossomy-y and spice notes not unlike Riesling and the mid-palate is light and loaded with fruit. A nice understated white wine for patio sipping and pairing with delicate cheeses.

Sonoma County resident Dan Berger publishes 'Vintage Experiences,' a weekly wine newsletter. Write to him at winenut@gmail.com.