While we appreciate the sentiment behind author Elizabeth Lawrence’s statement that “Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn”, in reality this time of year leaves us little time for daydreaming, romance and poetic notions! That’s not to say we don’t marvel and wonder in the beauty of Fall – far from it – it’s just that for us that takes the form of harvest and hard work. The best kind of hard work, mind you, the kind that yields its own poetry and wonder… for what is a beautiful, expressive wine if not poetry in a bottle?
Before that poetry can make its way into the bottle though, we need to get the grapes harvested, the crushing done, and all kinds of other labours of love completed! So why not take time to sit and watch the grapes turn as we reveal exactly what it takes to get the harvest in… Without further ado, we present to you:
Clos du Soleil Harvest 2018 by the numbers
Tons of grapes harvested so far: 67T
Tons of grapes still to pick before harvesting is done: 23T
Number of varieties of grapes we are working with: 8
Number of Clos du Soleil vineyards we farm: 3
Number of contracted growers who grow for Clos du Soleil: 5
Number of people working in Clos du Soleil winery during harvest: 5
Combined years of experience of our cellar team: 51
Number of bottles of wine from one of our barrels: 300
Number of barrels in Clos du Soleil winery: 110
Number of concrete tanks in Clos du Soleil Winery: 3
Number of barrel fermentations this year: 14
Number of hours per day we are working: 25
Minutes of the day when we aren’t playing music in the winery: 0
Number of cups of coffee consumed per day, per team member: 94
Number of hours Mike (Clos du Soleil winemaker) has spent driving the forklift: 74 million