Throwing the luggage in the resort to the car, Xiao Yifei drove into the winery.

After driving into the vineyard, Blacknose raised his head and looked curiously at the vineyards on either side. Park the car in the garage at Bee Hill, where Beau is already waiting.

"Xiao, let me show you around."

Xiao Yifei just got out of the car, and when the black nose saw that Xiao Yifei did not open the co-pilot's door, he sat up and shouted at Xiao Yifei twice, as if to remind Xiao Yifei, "You forgot me in the car." Seeing that Xiao Yifei didn't react, he simply jumped out of the car window.

"This is your pet dog?"

"Yes, it's called, it's almost 1 year old."

According to the growth period of the earth dog, the black nose has reached adulthood. Perhaps the black nose itself is a dwarf variety, and now the black nose is only half the height of Xiao Yifei's calf, and the estimated shoulder height is only 35 centimeters.

Bo looked at the puppy squatting at Xiao Yifei's feet and staring at him: ", is it a girl?" ”

Blacknose heard its name and looked up at Beau.

"yes, it's pretty naughty usually. I'm probably not used to it today. ”

"It looks like the size is not bad, and I guess it will be so big in the future."

It is true that the black nose is much smaller than his Golden Retriever and does not give a strong sense of threat.

The black nose sniffed Wen Bo's hand carefully, probably felt the smell of grape juice, shook his head twice, and returned to Xiao Yifei's side.

Bo took Xiao Yifei on a tour of the bee hill and went to work. Xiao Yifei sat on the sofa and touched his black nose's head. Today it is particularly honest, and it is estimated that it was scared by the injection. In the past, every time he was released, it was like a prisoner letting go of the wind, sniffing everywhere, but today he honestly squatted next to Xiao Yifei.

"Alright, let's go see the environment."

The bee mound is more than 6 meters above the ground, and it is a small dirt bag surrounded by green trees. Walking around the bee hill with a diameter of 70 meters, the black nose was a little more cheerful and began to run around and sniff around.

The breeze blows through the vineyards, the light brown leaves rattle softly, and the clusters of purple grapes fall heavily, all indicating that the harvest season is coming.

During this time, Bo, Cameron, Martin and several assistant winemakers ran to the vineyard eight times a day, and David was stationed in the vineyard for a long time, observing the grapes and caring about the weather forecast.

In the harvest season, once there is continuous rain, the rain on the grapes will dilute the grape juice, the rain is also easy to cause the loss of wild yeast on the grapes, and the most troublesome thing is that the environment on rainy days is very conducive to the mass reproduction of mold, too much mold will cause grape mildew, mold into the grape juice, will also seriously affect the fermentation, damage to the wine. Once there is a large-scale mold outbreak, the harvest of the season is completely ruined.

Therefore, judging the quality of the vintage, the weather during the harvest period is one of the important links.

Thankfully, this year has been cool, not rainy.

David plucked a grape, squeezed the mustache onto the refractive prism of the Brix meter, covered the cover, adjusted the eyepiece, and looked at the line at 23.6, which means that the sugar content is 23.6 degrees, and the general picking should be above 23 degrees, so that the wine can have an alcohol content of 14 degrees.

David handed the Brix meter to Bo, who looked at it and handed it to Xiao Yifei.

Beau sighed. "Hey, the weather still doesn't work."

David said, "yes, either there should be 23.9 by now, if only there was 24.1." ”

Martin said next to him:

"I heard that Bordeaux is good this year, and some people are praising it as the year of the century, and it is estimated that they have made a lot of money this year."

Bo taught him a lesson: "Don't care what other people do, do your own thing, and check the barrel again." ”

Martin could only honestly inspect the oak barrel, and Xiao Yifei had nothing to do now, so he followed him to see the oak barrel.

The manufacturer of the barrels is Nadalie, located at 1401 Tubs Street, next to the winery. The cooperage occupies only 1 acre in the gap between the mountain bag and the Napa River.

This batch of oak barrels, Bo placed an order at the beginning of the year, after Xiao Yifei bought the winery, the director Tony specially came to Xiao Yifei to confirm the validity of the order, Xiao Yifei set off to Europe to find Isis space before the winery received the first batch of 500 barrels, came back to know that the entire 800 oak barrels have been delivered, he immediately paid the payment.

Oak barrels do not remain still in the cellar forever, and it is not easy to move them from time to time to ensure that the barrels made of wooden planks do not leak.

Xiao Yifei has visited their production process, a lot of which is manual labor, and it needs to be done by skill. It's no wonder that oak barrels are very expensive, costing $300 for an American oak, $450 for Eastern European barrels with better wood, and $600 for French oak.

This difference in price is mainly determined by the difference in the taste that oak and oak can give to the wine. They say that the aroma of American wood is strong, but the taste of oak is superior to the fruitiness and bouquet of wine, while the taste of French wood is quiet, and the aromas of fruit, wine and oak are intertwined to blend together and become more elegant. In addition, the oak of Eastern Europe is commonly used in between.

In the past, the United States generally used its own oak barrels. At that time, American oak barrels were not processed in an advanced way, so American wines sometimes appeared to be too oak-flavored, and were ridiculed and criticized by the arrogant French as "American oak wine". Later, after the development of American wine, the processing of oak barrels kept up, and the purchase of oak barrels everywhere made it impossible for the French to laugh at American wine.

All the barrels are basically French oak, and this one was no exception. Because of the use of imported raw materials, before the timber was delivered to the Ladalet cog factory, this batch of timber had been made into planks, and it was exposed to the sun and rain for two years, and the smell in the wood had long been removed. In addition, in these two years, all stresses and deformations in the wood have been actually eliminated, so that the barrels will not be deformed in the future, whether with or without wine.

Once the planks are in their hands, they cut them to the dimensions they have already set out and turn them into boxy strips. Such neatly shaped strips of wood cannot be used to make barrels, they need to be further molded to ensure that the barrels are perfectly fitted, and if there are cracks, the wine inside will leak out.

In fact, the molding is very simple, just like the key outside, put the wood on the machine, fix it, and then the machine will automatically make the wooden strips into different shapes, and then after the wooden strips required for a barrel are finished, they are tied together and sent to the next process.

The next step is to rely on skilled workers to work by hand.

A gray-haired, bearded worker placed the sticks on the ground to form an unfolded diagram of a barrel, and then he carefully measured the various dimensions of the figure, and from time to time he picked up a stick and took it to the machine next to him for further trimming. After passing the inspection, the sticks can be sent to make barrels.

The next step is for the young people to do the hard work, but these young people have also worked in the factory for at least two years. Only people with enough experience can guarantee the quality of the barrels.

There is a circular groove in the ground, in which an iron ring is inserted, and the last one is hammered into it with a hammer, and the wood naturally forms a circle. After turning it over, knock in two other larger hoops, and one end of the barrel is complete. It's easy to say, but in fact, this work still needs experience, the iron ring is not thick, the force must be uniform when knocking, and it is necessary to ensure that the three iron rings are knocked in parallel.

Then the barrel on one side and the other side of the completely forked thing are sent to the lower baking stage, which requires more experience, and the worker must know the heat of baking, the time of baking, the time of steam, and so on. Roasting is a key step in the relationship between the barrel and the taste of the wine, and the oak barrel of the wine cannot be heavily roasted, which is the way to add a smoky flavor to the whisky, but the toast is not enough, and the oak flavor does not come out, so the experience here is very crucial.

There are stoves on the ground, and from time to time some oak blocks and sawdust have to be added to the stove made by the previous process. Half-finished oak barrels are split around the stove. A rich smell of oak permeates the entire workshop.

At the same time as the roasting, the other end of the barrel is formed.

A steel cable is set on the barrel, and a tightening device is next to it, which is responsible for tightening and forming the planks while they are hot, and the workers ping-pong the iron rings are knocked up, followed by two iron rings. So that the shape of the barrel comes out.

The next step is to add a dome and a dome to the barrel.

Finally, there is the borehole, which has a hole in the waist of the wine barrel, which is used to monitor the quality of the wine during the fermentation or aging phase. As well as replenishing the volatilized wine through it, keeping the wine full and avoiding contact with the air.

After the air tightness check, the barrel is polished, the sides and the top and bottom of the barrel are smoothed, and finally the oak barrel factory logo is printed, and then the name and number of the Monterena winery are printed, so that the barrel is completed. to be able to send it to the winery.

When the new barrels arrive at the winery, the winery is first poured with water for cleaning and disinfection, left for two days to check the tightness, cleaned again, then rinsed with water, dried in the shade, rinsed and dried in the shade, so that the preparation is completed.

Now the oak barrels needed for the winery have only been cleaned for the first time and are being dried in the shade.

The sad Martin could only shine a flashlight bucket by bucket to check whether there was standing water inside the bucket and check whether the outside was clean. The barrels were stacked layer by layer, and he and several workers had to move them down, inspect them, and then transport them to the other side to re-stack them. It's the same as someone said, draining the soldiers' energy and asking them to move a pile of bricks from one place today and another tomorrow to kill Martin's anxiety.

Now other people's Sauvignon Blanc has begun to be picked, but the winery has not planted this white grape, and everyone can only continue to wait anxiously.