Sparkling Wine Grape Harvest Has Begun in Napa

I never realized when I closed my last posting a week ago that the harvest of grapes for sparkling wine production would begin within hours! The photo above was taken earlier this week in Napa Valley. These are some of the first grapes of the season...Chardonnay that will go into Domaine Montreaux, a wonderful small batch Napa bubbly. Kevin Corley is shown here inspecting some of the first picking bins to go into the winery just after dawn.

I was photographing vineyard landscapes in Alexander Valley, over the hill in Sonoma County, when I got the word from Chris Corley that they would be pressing grapes this week. It seems like just a couple of months ago that I was photographing 'bud break' in some of these same vineyards. Just rows away from where we were picking... small pockets (maybe 1 -2 %) of red grapes are still completing veraison! The sugar levels in these Chardonnay (and Pinot Noir) grapes that will go into a sparkling wine cuvee are much lower than they will be when the regular (still wine) harvest begins in a few weeks.

Even though it did not take long to complete picking and pressing it was the sure sign that things are about to get crowded around the crush pad. For the wine exhibit...every aspect of the 'winegrowing' season will be photographed. There are few times in the year more exciting to be around a winery than at harvest time....so stay tuned to the upcoming posts!

A Matter of Inches

We had a short window of access into the Ansary Gallery of The George Bush Presidential Library & Museum to take all measurements we will need for drawing up Wine Exhibit floor plans prior to the NASA Space Exhibit moving into the gallery. Rarely is this gallery totally empty and we had to take advantage of this opportunity. We met Library Curator Susie Cox on Saturday morning and began measuring. All but a few measurements were completed and noted...the other few were finished today. This task is now complete.

These measurements will enable the 'exact' to be melded into my 'concept' in the production of the exhibit. Just looking at the preliminary sketches done by Engineering Tech Bing Djie, it is reassuring to begin to see the level of accuracy that will be carried from tape to pen, (or CAD) to paper, to the saws, the hammers and finally the installation of all the exhibit elements.

Now I can turn my focus back on the exhibit photography and multimedia production.

Harvest is just around the corner...and I only have the next 8 to 10 weeks to complete all harvest photography and filming for the exhibit. Back to the airport...

A Week of Photography

The morning fog in the vineyards was beautiful this week. Most of the grapes have completed veraison and the vines seem to be entering a more mature stage showing nice fruit and taking on character. The photograph above was taken in Alexander Valley in Sonoma County. Shortly after the photo was taken, the cool fog burned off, and the elements that formed to create a magical morning scene quickly yielded way to a warm sunny day. I shot four or five hundred photos earlier this week for the multimedia applications that will be part of the wine exhibit. Most of the photos were detail shots in the vineyard but I also did some cellar photography in Napa.


Working in a vineyard at sunrise is very special. You can see so much life there, but not just of the human form... I routinely see jackrabbits, foxes, deer, wild hogs, hawks, quail and waterfowl. For me, this melding of the flora and fauna in the vineyard is just one aspect of diversity and balance in winemaking and in life. In another month the pickers will be out in the vineyards at dawn...working as man has for centuries harvesting the fruit of the vine.

Keeping the Exhibit 'True to Life'

One of my primary goals in creating this wine exhibit is to educate people. Not only in the production of wine, but in the contrasts in wine production styles. Oftentimes this directly relates to winery size. Wine can be such a diverse product. There can be vast differences in the production techniques employed in modern day wine making ... from hand-crafted 'boutique' products to 'refinery winery' blends.

There are many variables in wine making. A winemaker is part chemist, part artist and part farmer. The best always have a 'vision'...of what they want to produce. They combine the season's harvest Mother Nature has provided in the vineyard with the skills and talents they have acquired in the cellar. For me, the goal of a winemaker should be to produce 'distinctive' wines. What do I mean by distinctive? I mean that the wines accurately reflect the characteristics of the varietal or varietals they are produced from. They reflect a sense of terrior, or be expressive of the vineyard or region where they are grown. More on 'terrior' in later posts...

To bring all this back to the exhibit...I want every aspect to be as realistic and accurate to what really happens in a vineyard and winery as possible. Fortunately, I spend a fair amount of time in wineries. Many have been extremely helpful in not only pointing me in the right direction when sourcing winery equipment for the exhibit, but also in keeping my conceptual designs based on reality. Chris Corley of Monticello Vineyards / Corley Family Napa Valley, pictured above, is one such winemaker. Chris has been helping me work through some 'interactive' exhibit details that I hope to incorporate. We talked last week about ways to visually show what happens during a fermentation. This would of course need to be achieved by artificial means that could safely exist in a museum environment, yet look realistic. During installation next September, Chris has agreed to make a quick visit to Texas to inspect everything for accuracy... or keeping things 'True to Life'.