Our grapes have been harvested and transported to Crushpad in San Francisco ready to start their journey from fruit to wine. That will start in about an hour from now but I’m 2,000 miles away in Minneapolis. That’s not a problem in this day and age as I’ll be joining via the Crushcam online. I’ll also be live blogging our progress here; stay tuned…

11:18 a.m. CDT - The Crushpad Cam is a bit choppy on my MacBook but the audio is fine… looks like the group is assembling now…

11:31 a.m. CDT - Alan has sent me pictures of the fruit… looks good with some raisins to sort out, etc. Several group members are online now on the Crushcam… and the first bin of Roussanne is in the sorting table now…

11:51 a.m. CDT - Several group members online chatting now trading Roussanne picks to try… sorting going well so far…

12:03 p.m. CDT - Now the group is getting geeky on yeast D47 & QA23 or shall we try BA11?

12:11 p.m. CDT - Sorting/Crushing complete… now the cold soak begins…

12:20 p.m. CDT - Just spoke with our winemaker and we will inoculate next Tuesday or Wednesday with D47 & QA23 yeasts (one in each barrel)… pressing is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. CDT today, so I’ll be back on the press cam then… will also post some photos here.

6:02 p.m. CDT - Back on the Crushnet cam, now focused on the press… not sure what is going on right now…

6:49 p.m. CDT - The Roussanne is finally going into the press…

7:09 p.m. CDT - Seems the pressing is near complete… a nice report from group member Robin on the juice; sounds like we have a good one in the works… a lot more as we get into fermentation, etc.

Cheers!