Alan's Got Some Major Skills

Hey, he's my brother so I can brag about him... This morning, 7:15am they were almost done picking the Petit Verdot, but I managed to catch Alan's superior tractor skills.

Having the large bin on the rear of the tractor allows our harvest crew in the adjacent rows to just reach over and fill the bin. The alternative is to run each bucket to a large bin at the top or bottom of the row.

Did I mention we are on a slope of 32 degrees that is comparable to a double-black diamond ski run? We could probably ski if we got more than an inch of snow and we removed all the rocks, but that's rather unlikely.


Seems like we almost have all our fruit in, except for one little block of Cabernet Sauvignon. There was talk about the weekend winds causing some water loss in the berries, but our fruit was in great condition this morning. Alan was here checking the rows on both Saturday and Sunday to be sure.

Just look at that! Impressive, no?





Currently in the cellar, we have about 18 independent fermentations going on at the same time—some are in stainless steel tanks, some in concrete tanks, others in individual barrels... Thank goodness the Viaders were all born with acute attention to detail. Alan has been holding down the fort, and our mother Delia, self-proclaimed "Chief Bottleneck," will be back tomorrow after a short trip visiting the youngest Viader in high school. She has a lot to catch up on when she gets back in! She'll probably want to taste through each one. Let the games begin. :)

Fondly,

Janet
sales & marketing at VIADER