So here goes; When I was young, we lived on the Mt. Eden Ranch. The Mt. Eden Ranch is the home of the current Plumpjack & Rudd properties bordering the Oakville Crossroad and the Silverado Trail. Not long after WWII ended, my dad returned home, married, and took over running the entire 80+ acre ranch. My dad (John) and my mom (Arline) started a family: John C: (born 1946), Larry (1947) Ranndy (1950) and Davie (1952).
Mom & Dad on their wedding day
We lived in a small house, next to the old winery. The winery still had several large redwood storage tanks and over a dozen open top fermenters, even though they had not been used since prohibition. It was also where we stored the wooden grape boxes used for harvest. These boxes were solidly constructed out of clear grain redwood and could hold up to 50# of grapes.
When harvest rolled around, these boxes would be loaded on a 40’s vintage flatbed truck, and spread in the vineyard the night before harvest. I still remember the sound the boxes made when they hit the ground. The next day, the pickers would fill the boxes and carry them to the end of the vine rows. There, they would be stacked, and the picker would use white chalk to write his number on the top box. As the truck moved through the vineyard to retrieve the filled boxes, the driver would note the number of boxes picked by each person. One man would place the boxes on the truck bed, as another stacked the boxes in neat rows. When the truck was loaded to capacity, the load would be tied down and the truck would head to a public scale, or winery, to be weighed. At the winery, the truck would pull up next to a grape “hopper” and the boxes would be dumped one-by-one into the grate covered box. A cleat conveyor would move the clusters into a crusher, where the berries were removed from the stems. The berries and juice (collectively called “must”) were then pumped into fermentation tanks; usually large redwood or concrete tanks during this time period. And so, the winemaking process began.
The 1960’s saw the introduction of stainless steel fermenting tanks, screw conveyors and grape gondolas. The gondolas were basically large steel box trailers capable of carrying between 3.5 to 5 tons of grapes. The average vineyard row was wider then, and these gondolas could be towed by a tractor, right down the vine rows. The pickers would fan out on the 3-5 rows on either side, fill their grape boxes, carry and dump them into gondola as it was towed slowly through the vineyards. When full, the gondola would be unhooked from the tractor, and a truck or pickup, would tow the gondola to the winery. During this time, the wineries had to construct tall steel crane structures over the now larger hoppers. At the winery, a large cable with a hook would be connected to one side of the gondola. The hoist would lift the gondola from one side, tipping it over to dump the grapes into the hopper. On some gondolas, the tank would separate from the frame for dumping. On others, the tank was connected to the frame, and the gondola, wheels and all, would be tipped upside down to dump the grapes. This was a huge, labor saving method, compared to transporting and unloading the wooden boxes. But, there was no margin for error in this process. If the hoist operator got careless, several tons of grapes could end up on the concrete. And then, you’d see several unhappy cellar workers in rubber boots, with pitch forks, pitching the grapes into the hopper. As well as several unhappy growers waiting in line to dump their grapes. But when everything went smoothly, one gondola could be used for several loads in a single day.
Simultaneously during this period, the larger growers and wineries would use the so called “Valley bins”. These steel bins held about 2 tons, and several were carried at one time on semi-truck & trailer rigs. The gondola and valley bin methods reduced harvest expenses and had a loyal following. They are still used at some valley wineries today. Over the years, the need arose for harvesting smaller lots of grapes going to smaller wineries that could be dumped by a forklift. Already in use for pears and other fruits were 4 ft X 4ft wooden & synthetic bins or boxes. Enter the half-ton bins for harvesting premium wine grapes. This is probably the most common method in use today at Napa Valley wineries. While they have their advantages, they also have their disadvantages. They have to be handled more than gondolas, and usually require a forklift in the field. Whereas gondolas reduced harvest labor & equipment expenses, the half-ton bins increased them.
But with time, some wineries, especially sparkling wine producers, thought the grapes needed to be handled more delicately than with the gondola & bin methods. They felt the grapes were getting crushed during harvest & transport and the juice was being exposed to air. They opted for smaller containers to be used in the process. They transitioned to what we in the industry refer to as “FYB’s”. FYB’s are most commonly yellow synthetic boxes. Less common are red & blue boxes. They are slightly smaller than the original redwood grape boxes, and stack easier. But the harvest process is very similar to when the redwood boxes were in use. Most growers dislike the additional time & money it takes to harvest this way and have adopted the acronym FYB for F___ing Yellow Boxes. They can’t really conceive of the benefits and consider those overly demanding winemakers to be the source of the problem. We continue to use the half-ton bins, but maybe someday…
Myself, I miss hearing the sound a redwood box makes when it hits the ground.
Brother Davie at 7 years of age in his 1960 “Hot Rod”(Note the creative use of the redwood grape box)
Foot note: After writing this article, I discovered that one winery claims the FYB acronym stands for Famous Yellow Boxes. Yet another refers to them as Fun Yellow boxes. I don’t see them as famous or fun, so I’ll stick with my interpretation.
No comments:
Post a Comment