The faces of Sonoma County grape harvest

The annual grape harvest is busy, stressful, sleepless and multifaceted. It takes a lot of different people with a lot of different skills to pull it all together and make it happen at all, let alone successfully.

Here’s what a handful of our Wine Country neighbors are up to this time of year.

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John and Diane Bucher, Grape Growers, Bucher Vineyard, Healdsburg: John Bucher farms 38 acres of sustainable vineyards on Westside Road in Healdsburg, in addition to raising organic dairy cows. Late in the 1990s, after years of researching varietals, analyzing soils and talking to neighboring grape growers, he planted the first vineyard blocks on land he previously had in pasture for his cattle. Additional plantings followed for the next 10 years.

Fifteen different blocks are planted to several pinot noir clones and a small block of chardonnay and Bucher works closely with the winemakers from the 10 wineries he sells fruit to, including Jeff Mangahas of Williams Selyem, David Ramey of Ramey Wine Cellars, John Holdredge of Holdredge Cellars, and Ben Papapietro of Papapietro Perry Winery.

In addition to growing and selling grapes, Bucher and his wife Diane started making their own wine in 2011. As a result, they feel they now have a better understanding of their own vineyard and the fruit it produces. Early in the growing season, Bucher checks on bud break, monitors the weather and measures soil moisture.

As the growing season progresses, water management, canopy management and fruit thinning decisions are critical to achieving the highest fruit quality at harvest.

“For our own wines, we source small amounts of fruit from almost all the blocks in the vineyard,” he explains. “As harvest approaches I’m in the vineyard daily, checking for ripeness, acidity and most importantly, flavors. While I’m making the decisions about when to harvest for Bucher Wines, I share all this information with the wineries I sell fruit to. Having a partnership with my winemakers that starts out in the vineyard allows all of us to produce exceptional wines.”

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Francisco Vega, Vineyard Manager/Assistant Winemaker, Ehlers Estate, St. Helena: Vega fell in love with the Napa Valley at age 16 on his first visit and has never looked back. With Ehlers Estate in St. Helena since 1999, he serves as both the vineyard manager, in charge of an eight-person, year-round vineyard crew, and the assistant winemaker to Kevin Morrisey.

He also lives on the property with his family, including Mojo, the diminutive vineyard dog always by his side. The property has 42 acres planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Petit Verdot.

At harvest, Vega has an additional two guys in the vineyard and cellar to help. He uses the same crew to pick, sort, do pump-overs (pump the wine from the bottom and up over the top must) and rack the wines, which is unusual for most wineries.

“I know the vineyards, so I decide what blocks we’re going to pick and which are better for certain wines,” Vega explains. “Harvest usually lasts about a month; with all the fermentations, barrel work and pressing, it’s two months. It’s a really busy time for me, I work a lot, I spend a lot of time with my guys, I’m a tractor driver, too. But it’s a fun time of the year, we make a lot of jokes, listen to a lot of music.”

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Oded Shakked, Winemaker/Owner, Longboard Vineyards, Healdsburg: “I’m a vinegar stopper, not a winemaker,” says Shakked, making light of the real and tiring efforts of fermenting grape juice into wine.

“You’re a conductor,” he finally admits. “Putting pieces of the orchestra together. Winemaking at harvest is multi-tasking.”

Though it can be chaos, with grapes coming in, dry ice deliveries, tanks and pumps and bins constantly in motion, Shakked explains that what’s fun about harvest is that he’s constantly making both educated and intuitive decisions at the same time. Those include decisions about when to pick certain grapes and then going through barrels as they ferment, tasting and doing analyses to figure out how they’ll taste in 12 to 14 months when bottled; how they’ll taste two years from now when released.

“It’s important to resist the temptation to forget about the lots that are fermenting, it’s like having 280 cakes in the oven,” he adds, of the 280 barrels he needs to taste and ensure are stable.

“When new grapes are constantly coming in, you have to make the time to spend with each of your babies. Harvest drains you, but at the same time fills you with tremendous energy. You’re adrenalized.”

Shakked works with 12 vineyards in Sonoma County, making everything from sparkling wine to chardonnay, pinot noir, syrah and merlot, which typically works out to about 120 to 130 tons of grapes each year.

“A winemaker has to be a Jack or Jill of all trades, good at logistics, flexible,” he notes. “From surfing, I’ve learned that control is an illusion, things are bigger than you, the vintage is ultimately going to determine quality, not me.”

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Maggie Kruse, Assistant Winemaker, Jordan Vineyards and Winery, Healdsburg: For Kruse, a typical morning at the Alexander Valley-based winery starts around 5 a.m. when she walks out to the grape hopper to assist (winemaker) Rob Davis and the night crew with crushing fruit.

“Rob and I are typically at the hopper operating the hoist and dumping fruit,” she says. “While it seems like a mundane task, it’s really helpful to see the condition of the fruit as it comes in and smell the bins of grapes as they are being dumped. This is the time where I start the mental winemaking process. I think about what yeast I want to use, how fast and at what temperatures we want to ferment the lot, even which barrels we want to use.”

When she’s not in the crush pit, Kruse coordinates with the winery’s cellar crew on its daily operations to make sure everything gets done, approving all the tasks.

“I smell and taste the tanks daily, to make sure fermentation is progressing well, allowing me to write pump-over work orders,” Kruse adds. “I plan and coordinate which tanks we’ll use and when we press to make room for more fruit. I also taste vineyard samples daily with Rob to help decide when other blocks of grapes are going to be picked.”

Plans are constantly changing during harvest. Picks get canceled, growers pick out heavy and then she’ll need more tank space, last minute fruit needs to be picked. Kruse is kept up to date on what is happening with the different growers the winery works with so she can let everyone else on the team know what’s pertinent and make any necessary changes to accommodate a constantly evolving schedule.

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Nicole Friehauf and Alex Schroeder, Interns, Holdredge Cellars, Healdsburg: On August 14, Nicole’s first day working at Holdredge Cellars in Healdsburg, grapes were picked. And so began her hands-on education into how wine gets made.

“I was looking to travel and looking for interesting things to do,” says the Fort Collins, Colorado native, who worked for a time in a wine and cheese shop and was curious about California wines.

Alex, 29, joined Nicole, 25, a few days later from Texas, after working in a wine and spirits store. He figured working harvest would be a good way to get out to California.

“We sort fruit, we take out the leaves and rocks and any botrytis,” he says. “We do punch downs and follow the wine’s progress, measuring Brix levels, pH temperatures, glucose and fructose every day.”

They work eight to nine hours a day before typically heading to John & Zeke’s, where they’ve met a lot of other people their age here to work harvest. Nicole’s drink of choice is a dirty vodka martini, Alex’s, tequila with grapefruit juice. But they also like wine and are learning a lot about it.

Before coming here to work harvest, Nicole had never in her life tasted Pinot Noir. Now she spends her days steeped in it, appreciating its every nuance and challenge. Alex had tried a lot of European wines but is now a convert to Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, and amazed by the region’s sheer physical beauty.

“I like wine,” Nicole says. “It seems to attract good people to good places. It’s hard work, but fun and John (Holdredge) is great about teaching us there’s no right or wrong thing when it comes to tasting wine, that it’s different for every person.”

Their harvest T-shirt this year reads, “Straight Outta Healdsburg,” and Pandora is always on while they work, blasting 1980s and ’90s rap, or Amy Winehouse, all day.

“I love wine, I love Sonoma. We get spoiled for all the work we do, beer at the end of the day, mochas every morning,” Alex says. “It’s a great community of people here working together. They all love their jobs.”

Virginie Boone is a freelance wine writer based in Sonoma County. She can be reached at virginieboone@yahoo.com and followed on Twitter @vboone.