Heisen House Vineyards

wgp: one plod at a time

April 30, 2007 -- The weather was particularly fine this weekend and I was in incredibly high spirits. I finally got to pruning the gewürztraminer and pinot 777 grapes I put in 3 summers back, and this small planting of just 16 vines got me thinking...I've accomplished a lot by just plodding, slowly and steadily, toward this vineyard dream. It may not have happened quickly, or in one big push, and most of the time it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere at all, but yet here it is -- happening -- and it struck me that there's something magical about that. How such little steps, taken over several years, have led me from there to here.

It began when I found an ad in The Capital Press for bareroot one year old wine grapes. It said:

WINE GRAPE PLANTS: bareroot, self rooted. 1 year old gewürztraminer and pinot noir. Dijon clones 115, 113, and 777. UCD clones 2A, 5, 29. $1.25 each. Cave Junction, OR. 541-592-3752.

While I had no real knowledge or experience growing grapes or making wine, I decided why not plant a red and a white, see what happens? I've always liked gewurtz wine, so I decided to get those. And even though it's not my favorite red, I knew pinot was probably the red I could grow here most successfully, considering the short season and lack of heat. I wasn't sure which clones to pick, so I put in a call, spoke to the vineyard manager at Foris Winery, and he advised I try the 777. I ordered 20 plants -- 10 of each -- and a few days later they arrived via UPS.

I decided to plant them near my garden, and planned to use the vines to create a living fence to separate the garden space from the rest of the field. After measuring it out and lining it up, the posts were set. With 4 feet of space between plants, there was only room for 16 of the vines, so I potted up the remaining 4 in one gallon nursery pots (where I am embarrassed to admit they remain to this day! Despite neglect and inconsistent watering, my being distracted by a baby, a ruptured appendix the following summer, my marriage hitting the skids, and multiple other life events, these same four plants are breaking bud as I write. I am amazed at their strength and ability to survive those conditions!)

A week or so later I rolled out weed fabric, cut little X's where the vines would go, sunk them in the ground, and waited. The buds on the seemingly lifeless sticks soon began to swell, turned pink, then burst forth as green leaves. I did little more with the planting for the next few years, as more pressing life challenges got in the way. The grapes put on a few clusters that first year, and then several more the following. Unfortunately the birds got them all before I did. I also didn't realize I should have been spraying the plants with fungicide to ward of powdery mildew (I haven't noticed a problem, but it may explain the lack of more grapes.)

Because I never got the wire up on the posts, the little plants sprawled along the ground, searching for something to climb up on. I did little more than give them a cursory glance, and prune them once a year. But they grew on, and as I noticed what hardy plants they were, my respect for the grapevine's characteristics and my desire to plant more grew.

So this weekend, as I pruned the sprawling plants and finally propped them upright with support from a bamboo stake and a grow tube, it occurred to me how at times plodding along is the key. It feels like you aren't getting anywhere, and then boom -- you've got a field filled with 500 grapevines. And all because of these 16 (well, 20)  little plants (and a dream) that refused to die. Amazing.

wgp: a vineyard is born

Photo: A view of the newly planted vineyard from the road, milk parlor and barn in the background.

April 26, 2007 -- These are the steps I took in planting my vineyard after 3+ years of dreaming about it.

First, I made a trip to Oregon Vineyard Supply to gather the necessary gear. Crop expert Jeff Flake helped me work out exactly what I would need, and what it would cost.

With the posts, wire, ratchets, anchors, and anchors in hand, I went to work measuring and marking out the site. Then, using a tractor mounted post hole digger, sunk in the wooden end posts 150 feet apart with 10 foot spacing (leaving enough room for a tractor or vehicle to move down the rows.)

Because farming sustainability and preserving soil tilth is important to me, I decided against the conventional tilling and clearing of the land. Instead I decided to judiciously use herbicide (Round-up) to remove the thick field grass where the rows would be placed. While I avoid chemical use whenever possible, this seemed the lesser of two evils compared to tilling and destroying the complex ecosystems in the soil. (I plan to manage the vines as organically and sustainably as possible -- after all, my daughter and I live here, too!)

Next, I rolled out 3 foot wide weed barrier from Geotextiles down the rows and staked it down using landscape pins, which look like huge bobby pins. As far as I know, I am the first in the area to use landscape fabric in a vineyard, but it just makes sense to me. Doing so will allow me to avoid using herbicide twice a year, as most vineyards do, to keep vegetation from growing in the rows. Or from the hours and hours of mechanical weeding and hoeing to keep them clear without chemicals. I figure the $300 investment will more than pay off in the fabric's 15 year lifespan, and will greatly reduce the amount of labor needed to maintain the site. The test plot I planted two years ago with weed fabric is performing beautifully in this aspect. Nearly care free, as far as weeding goes. The weed barrier and mulch covering it also eliminate competition with the vines from weeds, help conserve moisture, and help warm the soil in spring.

Next, I tied a string from one end post to the next to establish a straight line, then laid a measuring tape out to establish my 3 foot spacing (I used my handy reel-up 300 foot tape for this, as a pocket tape measure wouldn't nearly do the job!)

Then, I took a metal bar with a point at one end, and began poking my planting holes roughly 10 – 12 inches deep every 36 inches. Luckily the soil was still relatively soft and wet, so doing so wasn't too difficult. I found that if I used my body weight to bear down on the bar, this worked best and saved a lot of strong arming. Two holes were needed for each cutting, one for the plant and one for the bamboo support.

After the row was in, I went back and slipped on the plastic grow tubes over each vine. Luckily Walt from Bethany loaned me most of these (thanks, Walt!) saving me .$75 x 350 ($262) in costs. The grow tubes will protect the cuttings, create an artificial greenhouse, promote faster growth, and also train the vine upwards and eliminate the need for early staking, among other advantages. Supposedly the vines will be a year ahead in bearing versus not using the tubes.

So that's the process. 34 wooden posts, 150 feet of string, one measuring tape, a metal bar, 500 cuttings, 500 bamboo stakes, 1,000 holes, and 1,500 feet of weed fabric later, I have a vineyard.

Next will be placing the metal support posts along the rows every 20 feet within the rows, and attaching the wires and anchors. I have until the end of the season to do this, as the vines won't need the support until next season.

While it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun to put the vineyard in. I had some help, but did the majority of the work solo. I found it very meditative to be out in the field, poking, planting, lining it all up. Once I got things down, it took about 2 hours to plant each row of 50 vines.

I also attracted quite a bit of attention in the process as my field is located on the corner of a fairly high traffic country road. People were waving, smiling, honking, rubber necking, and even pulling alongside, rolling down their window to ask what I was planting. "Wine grapes," I'd yell, and they would smile and nod. Of course, the wine grapes are several years off yet, but I think I'll get a sign to post on the fence that says, "Future home of Heisson Vineyards. Pinot gris. Pinot noir. Planted 2006" or something of the like to start generating a buzz.

The name isn't final yet, but as I live in the historic Heisson House, in Heisson, WA, on a homestead established by the Heisen family, I feel it's a fitting name and a good working title. We'll see. I wonder what Alexander Heisen would think of the venture, me planting grapes on land he cleared so long ago? I hope he'd be pleased. (While the town is called "Heisson" the family name was spelled "Heisen." Apparently there was a bureaucratic mix-up that led to the misspelling of the name, but it stuck. The rail line stop in town is called "Heison," further adding to the confusion. I have not decided which spelling to go with but am leaning toward the town name -- Heisson.)

And that's the story of how I turned my empty field into a vineyard.

wgp: a whole lot of nothing

April 24, 2007 -- Ok, I have a confession to make. I accomplished none of the things on my vineyard to-do list yesterday. Sigh. Luckily the forcast is for good weather for the next several days. I suppose even if I don't get any of that list done except pruning, things will still be ok. Planting grapes is addictive, I suddenly find myself wanting more, more, MORE!!! Isn't 500 enough? Apparently not.

wgp: for everything, a season

April 24, 2007 -- Yesterday's sunshine has been replaced by a blanket of clouds and a few sprinkles here and there. I am hoping to get started digging up and moving the 80 or so pinot noir 114 cuttings I started near the garden area last summer, and begin moving them out to the field today. There are still several empty rows in the middle because I started on the east side with the pinot gris, the west side with pinot noir, and they meet up in the center. I wish now I had gotten 350 cuttings of each variety instead of 250. I had room. But 500 seemed like a nice number to start with, I suppose.

It will be slower going putting in the plants versus the cuttings, as I will need to dig a hole for each rather than just poke them into the soil. (There will be more on the specific steps I took to put in the vineyard in a future post.) It will give me a taste of how working with grafted plants would differ from starting with cuttings. I would have liked to start with grafted plants, rather than own root plants, to eliminate the phylloxera risk. But at $3 a plant x 500 plants, I couldn't afford it this time along with the posts and wire and all that ($1,800 spent there so far...not a lot really but grafted plants would have doubled that and I didn't have it) The others in the area are also going own root, which I guess increases the risk for everyone of the illness spreading if people share crews/equipment. The last thing you want to do is lose 20 year old vines, which is what is happening in McMinnville/Dundee at some wineries. In the future, I plan to use grafted plants, and gradually phase out the own root vines. I guess I'm looking at this planting as a foot in the door, a chance to do and learn. Double the work and I'll have to backtrack, I know, but I had to start somewhere.

I also need to prune the plot of 18 pinot noir 777 and gewürztraminer vines. They're coming into their third year this season, but because I never got the wire up on the posts they're all sprawling on the ground. I am going to do my best to correct that when I prune, hope to be able to train them upright even at this point. I have decided that even though it may be too late, I'm going to see if the prunings from those will root in the garden area. If so, I can move them out to the field next year as well and they'll have a year's growth on them which would be nice. If not, I'll buy plants. Or maybe I'll do that next time anyway...do it right. But it doesn't hurt to have them going, I suppose.

I tried a remarkable gewürztraminer/pinot blanc/pinot gris blend on my trip this weekend, and a gewürztraminer desert wine with notes of lychee that was so phenomenal I had to buy it despite the snotty tasting room staff, and these got me thinking of the potential for this grape I've always liked. If it grows in McMinnville/Dundee, it should grow here but the only way to know is to try since it hasn't been done before to my knowledge. If the 777 will also grow here, I'd like to play with that as well because I hear such raves about it and it's peppery qualities. Walt said he's not had much luck with it, it ripens several weeks after the 114 and is a bit on the cutoff, not quite ripening before the rains return to either mold or split the fruit. But, I'd like to try, see what happens. Again, I feel I am a day late and a dollar short with all of this planting and pruning, which should have been done a month or more ago, but I suppose it is worth a try. If it doesn't work, well then it doesn't and I will have learned something, anyway. There have been so many limitations on me being able to move forward with the grapes this year. Life just got in the way. But I still did it anyway, damn it, and of that I am proud! I can't describe how satisfying it is to look out in that field and see those grow tubes all in a row. Just what my soul needed.

I'm learning the lesson that in the vineyard everything has a season, and things more or less need to be done in that timeframe. Preparing ground needs to happen in the fall so it's ready for dormant plants or cuttings in mid winter when the ground is too wet to work up. Pruning and starting of cuttings should happen before bud break. Training vines needs to happen the first and second summer. When the weather is nice, I need to be ready to seize the moment. Just some of the lessons I've learned so far... But now, with me as my only roadblock, things should improve.

wgp: why grapes don't need pretty flowers

April 23, 2007 -- After a few days of cloudy, rainy weather the sun is back -- and just in time. The apple trees are in full bloom and I am anxiously crossing my fingers for a few good, hot days so the bees will get out there and pollinate them. Without that there will be no fruit, which was the case for two summers straight before last year's bumper crop. I am hoping for a repeat performance of plenty so I can make more hard cider. Once I caught the brewing bug, it's like I can't make enough. Each batch is so individual, so unique. Entertwined with who helped and what happened. It's fascinating to watch the process unfold, fun to drink and share the end result. Like one big crazy science project. Last year I meant to record exactly what I did when making each batch of cider, but didn't get around to it and of course now I've forgotten. This year (fingers crossed for fruit), I'll be able to blog it so I don't forget again.

Speaking of bees, grapes are self-fertile, so they don't need bees to help them set fruit. Grape flowers (which are a ways off yet, just breaking bud now) are actually so small you don't even know they're there unless you're hunting for them...I suppose since they don't need to attract pollinators, they dropped all pretense of beauty and just went with a minimal look. The plain Jane of the fruit world. But soon enough they strut their stuff, as each tiny flower nub swells and grows all summer to become a luscious grape.

wgp: mcminnville experience

April 22, 2007 -- The remaining grow tubes and bamboo stakes were safely procured and are now in place out in the vineyard. Mia didn't seem to mind being practically buried in grow tubes in the backseat, and started to use one as a megaphone to entertain herself. What a great kid! The trip to McMinnville was an interesting experience, especially as I stand on the verge of vineyard-hood.

Much happened but I want to quickly record my thoughts on the three tasting rooms I visited on the journey. The first stop was at the Evergreen Vineyards, with a tasting room housed inside the Evergreen Aviation Museum, home to the famed Spruce Goose, among 80 other craft. Apparently the museum has gotten into the wine business, boasting some 150 acres of grapes in the Willamette Valley. An interesting combination, to say the least. The tasting experience was a great one. Tasting was free of charge, and two vintages of their pinot gris, pinot noir, and blush wines were available to compare side by side. I find it very interesting to taste wine from different years, to compare and contrast. The staff manning the tasting room were highly knowledgeable and very willing to talk about the entire winemaking process, something I appreciated. The blush wine was made in 2004 from pinot noir, in 2005 from mostly chardonnay with a pinot cap to add color. I was told blush wine is a French tradition, a quickly made wine that is meant to be drunk right now, versus the red pinot noir meant to be aged for 12 months or longer. I think this is a good approach, after all it's hard to wait a year to taste your hard work and it gives you something to drink while you wait for the rest to mellow. I know many people look down upon blush wines, but I believe they have their place. The pinot gris was interesting, as was the pinot noir. The reserve pinot was made from the 777 varietal only, which I learned is favored for it's "pepper" notes. It will be interesting to see how this young venture will change as time goes on. I purchased a glass of wine made from the 777 pinot, and sipped it while admiring the planes on display.

The two other tasting rooms were located at established vineyards that I've toured before. I won't name-names here, as I want to discuss the experiences freely. Both were IMHO unsatisfactory. Both charged a $10 tasting fee, which I felt was quite high. I know these vineyards need to recoup on the wine offered for tasting and the traffic that comes through their successful doors, but $10 seemed excessive to me. Both places also only comp'ed the tasting fee on purchases of a case or more. Again, this rubbed me the wrong way. I could understand charging for those who don't buy, but if you make a purchase it only seems logical to me the tasting be free. In general, I notice people seem to buy less when there is a tasting fee. Perhaps they feel they've "paid" and don't need to buy a courtesy bottle or two. Or perhaps, at $10 a stop, they can't afford to! Both places also offered 2005 vintages only and both were manned by staff who explained little about the wines, and weren't interested in talking about the products or process any further than what it said in the tasting notes provided. Perhaps that's all they knew? Hard to tell. Not a user-friendly experience. The staff at the 2nd stop were especially unwelcoming, muttering under their breath that they wished they could just flip the sign to closed and shut the door! It was 4:30, the tasting room closed at 5. I suppose they tire of those slipping in to taste at 5 minutes to close, then lingering long past. But come on! It was totally rude and definitely interrupted my experience. I found myself rushing through the tasting list, so I could get out before closing. Perhaps this is what happens when one gets big and successful? The customers become so plentiful, that even with a high tasting fee and rude staff, they know their tasting rooms will be filled with another crop of tourists the next weekend? Would their owners approve, if they saw the staff acting as I did? It feels like much has changed there. Just 5 years ago, it was rare to see a tasting fee, most tasting rooms were staffed by owners and those who worked the grapes and made the wine, the pace was welcoming and unhurried, they were willing to talk about the process, and the place had that small family-run winery feel. I prefered that greatly.

Anyway, enough complaining about that. I must say, the acres and acres of vineyards in Dundee and McMinville made my small venture look piddly in comparison. Yet just two decades ago, those same winemakers were regarded as crazy rebels -- growing grapes where none had been grown before. Much like Clark County today, which boasted only one vineyard (Salishan) for decades, before Bethany and English Estates opened their doors a few years ago. Last year, another -- Rusty Grape Vineyards -- joined the pack, and Salishan closed their doors saying they had done it long enough --they were passing the baton. It sounds like they will continue to sell grapes, just not make wine. Walt says this year 5 vineyards are going in this year that he knows of, plus mine. There is a definite feeling of a groundswell. After all, like the award-winning vineyards I visited this weekend, we're in the Willamette Valley just across the river. When people think Washington wine, they thing Eastern Washington where the climate is arid and hot. Not SW Washington even though it shares the climate of Oregon's most successful wineries. I suppose it just takes one or two willing to try it before others see it can be done. I aim to be within the first 10 wineries registered in Clark County. But it sounds like I better hurry -- or I might miss the boat! I wonder what the vineyards in Clark County will look like, 20 years from now. How many acres of grapes and wineries will there be?

wine event: wines of portugal

A few days ago, we went to our our first Portuguese wine tasting outside of Portugal (where we visited in June 2006) at New York City's Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers -- a beautiful setting right on the Hudson River. The tasting, called the ViniPortugal 2nd Annual Tasting included more than 400 Portuguese wines from over 50 producers, and since many Portuguese wineries are still family-owned and run, many of the people pouring were the ones who had created the wines or who run the winery, instead of totally unconnected distributors. (In fact, a substantial number of the wineries at the event had signs on their tables saying they were "looking for [an] importer," showing just how difficult it still is to get many Portuguese wines -- beyond the ubiquitous port, of course -- in this country.) The event was to benefit the Slow Food USA organization at a mere $35 per person.

We had the most impressive wines of the evening at a fairly basic Portuguese wine seminar led by Michael Weiss, the chair of wine studies at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and the co-author of "Exploring Wine." We sampled six reds from around the country, including a delicious Sousao from Casa Santos Lima (Estramadura, 2004) that tasted of black cherry candy (it smelled like the coating on a candy apple) and retails for around $20, and a phenomenal blend of six grapes from the Douro region called Quinta do Vale da Dona Maria (2004), a big berry wine with a delicious flavor of cinnamon, which sells for around $50. We also enjoyed the 2004 Trincadeira from Cortes de Cima (Alentejo, 2004), which had a "dusty strawberry" flavor with nutty caramel at the finish. Yum!

If you've never heard of these grapes before (Sousao? Trincaderia?), that's because there are more than 200 grape varieties indigenous to Portugal. The most common (which you may have never heard of, either) is Touriga Nacional, one of the main grapes in Port (which can be made from a blend of dozens of grapes) and in many red-wine blends from the Douro Valley, a beautiful region of steep vineyards sloping down to the river, as well as the Dao region south of the Douro.

Though we also tasted some sub-par wines at this event, the good Portuguese wines (at least the red ones) tend to be fairly bold, fruity, and flavorful, and relatively inexpensive compared to varietals from other European countries. Now we just need to search out more of them here in NYC! 

wgp: here comes the sun...

April 20, 2007 -- After several days of rain and plain old strange weather, the sun is back. Just in time, too, as the pear blossoms are starting to wane just as the apple blossoms are starting to open. I am keeping my fingers crossed for another good fruit year so I can make some more hard cider. Rain is predicted all weekend, so hopefully those bees will get busy today.

Speaking of bees, neighbor Dave is busy making bees boxes today, to attract Mason bees to his blueberry patch, and he's making an extra one for me as well. (Thanks Dave!)

I plan to run out to the heart of Oregon wine country -- McMinnville -- to Oregon Vineyard Supply and pick up some more grow tubes on Saturday. Walt at Bethany Vineyards loaned me all he had left. (I was late picking them up and by then his stock was depleted by the 5 others also putting in vineyards this year) So I still need about 250 more. I didn't realize what an advantage the tubes were, until I read this article so I figure I better get them on the remaining vines right away. I plan to visit a few wineries while I'm down there, for inspiration, and maybe go see the Spruce Goose as well. TGIF!

wgp: bipolar weather and the great bottle hunt

April 19, 2007 -- Yesterday's weather can only be described in one way -- bi-polar. It went from sunny, to pouring, to sunny, to hail, to sunny, to sideways rain, to sleet, and back to sunny again. Then, just to be sure we were all getting the message, it actually poured rain while the sun was shining. Ah -- spring in the Pacific Northwest.

With the pear cider (aka perry) nearing completion, my thoughts turn to the great bottle hunt once again. Thanks to the bumper fruit crop last year, I was able to make 30 gallons of hard apple cider (three 10 gallon batches) plus 10 gallons of perry. And at 5 wine bottles per gallon, well it's pretty easy to see that adds up to a whole lot of bottles. So I put word out to family and friends to start saving me their empties.

This was a good start, but I soon realized that my family and friends may not want me to know how much they actually drink, so I suspect they were only passing along one out of every three bottles they emptied. Now I could have bought new bottles, but at about $1.17 each, I wanted to avoid it if I could. And besides, as my good friend and fellow apple presser Allison pointed out, we could get wine bottles filled with (some would argue) drinkable wine for not much more than that at Trader Joe's.

While it was handy to have an excuse to start emptying bottles, we soon realized that even at top consumption we would not be able to meet our demand. So Allison, who lives in Portland, went and hit up a bistro in her neighborhood. Sure enough, they told her they put their bottles out for recycling twice a week, and as long as she got there before the recycling truck, she could have all she wanted. So Allison has become our operation's top bottle procurer and always has a load of bottles for me to drag home when we see each other.

Now the problem with used bottles is that they must be absolutely sterile and clean before you fill them. It helps greatly if one swishes out the tail end of the wine with water before setting it aside in storage. Otherwise a sticky ring of dried wine forms, and it's a major pain to get out. Luckily, my neighbor Dave who is retired and happens to enjoy such nit-picky projects -- has volunteered to do bottle duty for the two batches of apple cider we've bottled so far. I hope he will volunteer, again, for the pear…but I may be pushing my luck there.

This is his process. First he puts the bottles in hot water in his sink to soak. Next, he removes the old label. Some labels just peel off like magic, others must be pried away one tiny piece at a time. (When this happens, Dave always says how he is never doing the bottles again.) Next, the bottles get loaded up into the bottom rack of Dave's dishwasher, washed, and then run through the drying cycle twice. After this, he cuts waxed paper into small squares, covers the opening of the bottle, and secures it with a tiny rubber band. That way, nothing can get into the now sterile bottles. He places them neatly in boxes where they wait for bottling day. It's handy to know a perfectionist, really it is.

When the time comes, we set the carboy up on a high surface, take our siphoning tool (from the brew store) and start filling. One person fills bottles, another takes them and inserts the cork (purchased new, from the brew shop) with the corking tool (rented from the brew shop for $5). Once we get in a groove, the work is done in no time. Hint -- don't bother with the tiny hand held corkers, they're not worth it. The floor corker is the way to go, and at about $69 to purchase, I may have to pick one up eventually rather than keep renting it. It inserts the corks smooth as silk.

Voila! Full bottles!

wgp: more rain and a perry update

April 18, 2007 -- The rain continues. Yesterday there was a freak hail storm, leaving behind a white covering almost an inch deep. It did no harm to the cuttings, which haven't started to break bud yet. But I wondered about the other vineyards in the area, and what the hail had done there. I am oddly aware of the weather in a way I've never been before.

Last night my neighbor Dave and I racked the hard pear cider (or perry) we made in the fall. Racking means transferring the liquid from one carboy (a 5 gallon glass jug) into another, leaving the sediment (lees) behind. Each time you rack the cider, it becomes more clear. The pear should be ready to bottle within 2 weeks.

A quick history of the perry. It all started with a bumper fruit crop last summer, which got me thinking I needed to make some apple and pear cider to celebrate. There had not been fruit for the past 2 summers because it happened to rain when the trees were in flower. Since the bees don't come out in the rain, and the rain knocks the petals that are meant to attract the bees off, no fertilization happened and no fruit set. But last year, ah it was glorious.

My neighbor Dave, who is 70-something, had a pear tree just loaded with fruit. So I asked what he planned to do with the pears and if he would give me some to make cider from. He surprised me by saying he loved pear cider, and had always wanted to make it. Bingo! So we collected the pears from his trees and mine, two 55-gallon trash cans full (clean, new trash cans, of course.)

Once we had the pears we ground them into pulp (pommy) with my friend Pinky's homemade apple grinder and press. This thing could easily take your fingers off, not OSHA approved I am sure. The pommy sat overnight, so the tannins could do their thing (this is not done with apple cider, just pear) and the next day we got ready to press.

Except, apples and pears are not the same thing. If you think of an apple, it's nice and crisp. A ripe pear on the other hand, soft and mushy. So when we tried to press the pommy, instead of juice flowing out of the cheesecloth, we had pear mush. We needed something with a tighter weave then cheesecloth. I ran and got some pillowcases, and so there Dave and I were, under the milk parlor, loading pommy into pillowcases and wringing out the juice by hand while bees swarmed about, crazed by the smell of the pear mash.

I am not kidding about the bees, they were literally landing on the pillowcases and we had to be very careful not to accidentally squeeze them as we wrung out the juice. I wanted to stop, but Dave urged me on. I was terrified he would be stung and it would be my fault. (Mental note – next time, do this part inside!) Somehow, despite the bees, we managed to squeeze out 10 gallons of pear juice and get it into the carboys with only me getting stung, barely, once. Amazing.

After that we did the usual -- adding the necessary yeast and nutrients and so on, then attaching an air lock to the bottle that lets the gasses from fermentation out but no air in. And then we waited for spring.

So this was the pear cider we racked yesterday, and because it was such an ordeal to get it, it's very special to me. I plan to hoard it for life. But Dave jokes we need to drink it, because the pear trees are in flower again and luckily we had some good, hot sunny days. And yes, the bees were out.