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of field workers raced to pick clusters of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon as the Pacific jet stream poised to unleash a storm that would deliver a decisive con- clusion to the 2010 harvest. "A consistently cool growing season is a rare event in warm Calistoga," said Richard Sowalsky, winemaker at Clos Pegase. "Everything was late. The mid- to late Chardonnay from our Carneros estate vineyard arrived at the same time as the early Cabernet from our Calistoga estate vineyards." With this year's crop a month behind schedule, growers yearned for another week of warm weather to ripen the grapes completely. But Sowalsky and crew couldn't wait for their luck or the weather to change. Time was running out. A storm that would douse local vineyards with nearly five inches of rain lurked off the Sonoma Coast. A A vintage known for its wet spring, cool summer and unpredictable harvest WINEMAKING fter a week of unseasonably high temperatures, the sky darkened and cast a somber, uneven light across the crush pad at Clos Pegase winery in Napa Valley. Nearby, knots could be remembered as the year that French equipment manufacturers intro- duced U.S. winemakers to the optical sorter. At a cost of approximately $140 per ton, mechanically sorting grapes makes sense for many winemakers. It is a complicated decision that requires them to consider more than the cost of sorting grapes alone. Optical sorting accelerates the pace of work in the vineyard and the winery, its purpose to ensure that winemakers crush the high- est quality fruit. More with less Before sunrise Oct. 22, Walsh Vine- yards Management, based in Napa, Calif., delivered a Pellenc destemmer and optical sorter to the winery team at Clos Pegase. By noon, the machines and a six-person crew had separated and sorted 15 tons of grapes—three times as much fruit as a dozen crew members could have processed by hand. With a sweeping motion, crew mem- bers raked clusters of grapes onto a pre-sorting table. They sifted through "Sorting 30 tons by hand alone could take three full days. With the destemmer and optical scanner we sorted 30 tons in a single day." —Richard Sowalsky, Clos Pegase QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #1110 Wines & Vines JAnUARY 2011 33