we arrived again at 8 AM the next morning and knew what we were supposed to do. We needed to get to the white bins of Charbono to begin the first of several punch downs again.  As we went about this task, the rest of the winery workers took fermentation readings, moved things around with fork lift trucks and were preparing for the last shipment of picked grapes this season. Aaron attended to his morning rituals and it was time again to taste the various red wines directly from the fermentation tanks to see how they were progressing.

There was eager anticipation for the last load of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes to be delivered from the vineyard. Around mid day the truck arrived. Time to get the fork lift truck to unload the bins full of the just-picked grapes. Now we had a chance to participate in the hand-sorting of grapes - a rarity that is often passed over by other wineries in favor of speedy production.

With the last of the harvest just delivered, the whole group of us, Aaron included, took up positions along the conveyor belt (photo above right).

It was being fed by the dumping of the fruit into a silver hopper (photo right).

 The fruit that was allowed to remain on the belt dropped into a de-stemmer and crusher. You could see the stems come out at the other end (right). The juice and must were pumped to a fermentation tank. This was the last day of harvest. A time to celebrate!

A flurry then erupts as a bottle of Champagne is popped and everyone gets sprayed. As if that isn't enough, the gang dumps the whole barrel of rejected grapes over Aaron's head. Everyone has a good laugh as they run around throwing grapes and getting sticky-wet from the Champagne.