At about 3 Mike, Peter and I headed over to terminal market for 500# of Muscat Alexandria. First stop was Lapide, where there were lots and lots of bees on the grapes, which I guess is a nice sign sugar-wise, but maybe they were there because the grapes were so beat up looking - rougher than any of us recall from past years. Maybe the downside of buying so late? We dithered, shuffled, chatted with the head man about Malvasia, took a walk...
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| 504 pounds of Muscat Alexandria about to be wrapped. |
... and looked in at Pagano. What we saw wasn't all that much more enticing, but was enhanced by the senior Tony Pagano (92 years old) regaling us with stories. We bit. 12 cases, 504# of Muscat, which we brought back to the house and got under a tarp. (The day started with heavy rains but they were over by now.) Mihai and Colleen were waiting for us when we pulled up and Lori came out, too - very quick work.
Mike took off, the rest of us went out back so Mihai could check out the new press - we made him chief engineer for tomorrow. Poked and prodded, decided to see how the hosing attached, filled the bladder and drained it and started putting together a plan of how things might work tomorrow.
We've already decided to put the destemmed grapes into a holding tank before the press, so things might flow as easily as possible and also so we might do a little hand crushing before pressing - we'll see.
Haven't tested the sugar level of the grapes yet - the boss at Lapide said 26 brix. We'll see in the morning. Sleep well, garapies!
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