Soho Crush

It was my first visit to City Winery in Soho.
It was a chance to have a small part in winemaking.
It was me, paying $50, for the privilege of doing some manual labor on Sunday afternoon (only in New York!). Of course, my parting gift was a bottle of their Downtown White (chardonnay with some muscat, light and pleasant, thankfully unoaked), and next year, a bottle of the wine from the grapes that came through that day.
We were a group of about 20 people helping to process two-and-a-half tons of pinot noir grapes from California. I worked for a couple of hours, loading grapes into the sorting machine and removing debris at the sorting table. It was a bit dizzying, so many grapes (they're pretty small, the size of blueberries), but we finished processing the whole shipment. The grapes were not actually crushed that day; the winemaker, David Lecomte (right), says they sit in the maceration tank for a number of weeks before crushing. The winery was also processing two-and-a-half tons of zinfandel grapes later that day, so they're pretty busy this time of year.

Loading the clusters into the sorting machine.

The sorting table, a popular spot.

The conveyor belt to the maceration tank.

Emile pours excess juice from the sorting table into the tank.

Grapes in the tank, soon to be a liquid delight, we hope.

I take a load off in the City Winery restaurant. A tiring but exhilarating afternoon!