Pressing the Montepulciano, racking the other wines, new olive oil

29 Ottobre
Where does the time go?  We picked the Montepulciano grapes 2 weeks ago and today pressed them.  An error was made during the harvest and some grape must was exposed to more skins than another batch.  This resulted in one tank being a "lighter" wine in both color and tannin extraction than the other.  The one with more skins is seriously good, though, so it seems we will profit from the mistake.

We also racked all the wines off their muddy lees again to clarify them, so the day was long in the winery.  However, now we have a week off, so I can concentrate on studying my pinciples and practices of winemaking book, pruning the olive trees and entertaining my KC guests.
We harvested in the neighborhood of 1800 kg of olives this year and had a record yield of 213 liters of really good olive oil.  Last year, the oil was a bit mild for me, just the way it was, but this year we are back to a full bodied, bitter, spicy, fruity olive oil which will mellow in the next few months, but now is a monster.  Actually 3 monsters as we made 2 single variety oils and one blend.  Below are Leccino olives.

We got our 1st snow in the mountains 2 days ago and the vineyard leaves are turning red, orange and yellow signifying the arrival of Autumnal weather.  The year has been full of work and I don't imagine we will have another this difficult, but in retrospect, like all years at my age, it flew by.

I hope everyone has a safe, fun Halloween, a holiday which is taking off like wildfire here in Italy. Here is your harvest moon to trick or treat by, almost looks like a jack-o-lantern.