Crush is just barely starting, and on this morning there were eight truckloads of Pinot grigio scheduled to come in. I went to meet them.
Pinot grigio is a popular "white" cousin of Pinot Noir. This is what a cluster looks like on the vine.
The grapes had been machine harvested the night before, and when we rolled in a 6:45AM there were three trucks lined up waiting
(essentially a FIFO queue with buffer). The geese to the far left are taking a shower.
Another truck on the way to the line. Each truck hauls two trailers, each trailer holds two bins, each bin holds approx 6½ tons.
Lynn rolls up on his heavily customized maintenance vehicle, note all the speakers.
The light goes green, the first truck rolls to a stop, and the stabber moves into position over the first tub.
The stabber is plunged into the grape bin, extracts a sample, and gets retracted upwards.
The sample is released into the bin.
Many cool push-buttons and dual four-way joysticks conrol traffic lights, pumps, stabber, sampler, and more.
The tub is pulled off, some of it goes to to the left to a small crusher.
The stumpy handle is just long enough to help push all the sample down into the crush rollers.
The rest of the sample is examined and dumped to a return auger.
The final product is a juice sample. The sample temperature and degrees Brix (°Bx) are taken.
The results are entered directly into the production system.
The ubiquitous computing - pervasive networking paradigm as expressed on the teststand.
This patch cable endures sun, rain, and cold. The gray patch cable is a dead one. The red one is missing a locking tang.
The floor was an interesting non-slip surface that looked like honey-mustard covered rock salt.
Roads, traffic signs, traffic lights controlled from the sugar stand.....reminds me of Caltrans.
After five trucks and 90 minutes I headed off, somewhat sticky.