When life gives you Chardonnay, you drink it straight from the tank.
One unforgettable day during harvest in Hawke’s Bay, I accidentally drank wine from a hose. But let me back up.
Back when we were living in New Zealand, we spent a good chunk of time in Hawke’s Bay—a place so beautiful it practically demands a wine glass in hand at all times. My husband, Dominic (yes, we’re naming him because calling him “my husband” repeatedly sounds like I’m trying to win a prize), was working at a winery, while I was working remotely on tragic U.S. time zones.
The upside? I was done before noon and dangerously available to loiter at the winery.
I wasn’t technically on payroll, but I appointed myself “cellar hand for the day.” My qualifications? Curiosity and an unshakeable refusal to waste good wine.
One glorious day, there was too much Chardonnay. Tragic, I know. So Dominic got assigned to move some of the golden excess into a smaller stainless steel tank.
The process was simple enough: hook up a hose, move the wine. Easy. Elegant. Seamless.
Except… is it ever that simple when I’m around?
Somewhere between “it’s going fine” and “is this hose possessed?”, we lost control. Chardonnay sprayed everywhere. At some point, I made the executive decision to “rescue” the wine by grabbing the hose and taking a sip. Or a gulp. Or five. Because wasting good Chardonnay is a sin I refuse to commit.
Do I regret it? Absolutely not. Would I do it again? Faster than you can say “malolactic fermentation.”
Despite the wine flood, hanging around the winery during harvest was one of the most fun experiences I've ever been a part of. We were living on the vineyard, soaking it all in—emotionally, spiritually, and literally.
At this point, I had just finished my first WSET certification and was feeling very knowledgeable. I thought I understood how wine was made. Hilarious. Turns out, “reading about fermentation” and “accidentally drinking 13% ABV juice from a spraying hose at 10 a.m.” are not the same experience. Who knew?
So, if you’re wondering what harvest season at a winery is actually like, allow me to take you on a tour, as your officially unofficial cellar hand.
So What Could a Day at a Winery Look Like During Harvest?
Stage 1: The Grapes Arrive
The grapes arrive early in the morning (or sometimes late at night because vines don’t care about your sleep schedule). Timing is everything here—grapes need to be processed fast to preserve freshness, acidity, and all those sexy aromatics.
Everyone scrambles to unload bins, fire up the equipment, and sort out the fruit. Think: Trucks, forklifts, shouting, grape stains, and one guy (Dominic) losing his gloves.
Stage 2: Sorting & Crushing
The grapes are either hand-picked or machine-harvest.
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Machine-harvested grapes are unceremoniously dumped into a crusher-destemmer, which removes stems and lightly crushes the berries. Efficient, fast, a little messy.
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Hand-picked grapes usually arrive in crates and are forklifted into presses or open-top fermenters. These are your high-maintenance, fancy grapes. The kind you don’t turn into boxed wine.
Whites and Rosés: These go straight to the press. The juice is immediately separated from the skins to avoid extracting tannins, resulting in a crisp, clean profile. Then, the juice is sent to a tank or barrel to begin fermentation.
Reds: These keep their skins during fermentation, which is what gives red wine its color, flavor, structure, and tannins—the building blocks of a bold wine and your next red wine headache.
Fun fact: Grape juice is actually clear—yes, even from red grapes. The rich color of red wine comes entirely from extended skin contact during fermentation.
Stage 3: Fermentation Begins - Sugar Meets Yeast
This is where the sugar turns into alcohol. Yeast (either added or wild) eats the sugar in the juice and poops out alcohol and CO₂. That’s fermentation, baby.
Winemakers monitor:
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Brix (sugar level) to track progress
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Temperature, since fermentation generates heat, and too much = cooked wine
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Aromas, which can range from “tropical fruit” to “wet hamster” depending on the day
Yeast strains and fermentation temps can be dialed in to influence wine style—lower temps preserve aromatics, higher ones build texture. It’s like sous vide, but for your hangover.
Stage 4: Cap Management – Punch It Down, Pump It Over (Reds)
In red fermentations, the grape skins float to the top and form a cap—think of it as a crusty grape blanket. This needs to be managed so tannins and color are extracted evenly. To manage this, you have to punchdown (punch down the skins back into the juice) and pumpover (pump juice over the cap).
This step happens 1–3 times a day until the cap no longer forms, indicating the end of fermentation. It’s manual, hot, and smells like gym socks and fruit roll-ups. Romantic, right?
After this process the now wine and skins are seperated. The skins are put into a press to squeeze out any remaining red goodness.
Stage 5: Racking & Barrel Aging – From Juice to Potential
Once fermentation wraps up, it's time to clean things up. White wine is racked (moved off the lees—dead yeast and sediment at the bottom of a tank) and transferred into barrels or tanks. If it’s going into oak barrels, things get fancy.
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French oak = subtle spice and structure
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American oak = bold vanilla and toast
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Neutral oak = gentle oxygen exposure, no added flavor
Oxygen helps soften tannins, develop complexity, and age gracefully through flavor and small amount of oxygen. Think of barrels as wine’s spa retreat. Let her rest. She’s been through a lot.
Stage 6: The Fine Tuning Phase
Barrels are topped regularly to replace wine lost to evaporation (aka the “angel’s share”). Winemakers test for acidity, sulfur levels, volatile compounds, and taste the wine—a lot. For science, obviously. Blending decisions happen here too.
They might say things like:
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“This lot needs structure.”
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“Let’s add a touch of Syrah.”
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“Who took the tank of Chardonnay?!”
Malolactic fermentation often happens during this stage (especially in reds and creamy-style whites). It converts sharp malic acid (like green apples) into soft lactic acid (like milk), giving wine that buttery vibe.
Stage 7: Bottling – Wrapping It All Up
After months of nurturing, the wine is filtered (if needed), adjusted for stability (hello, sulfur), and bottled. This is usually outsourced—unless you’re doing it by hand, in which case: condolences.
From Vine to Wine
Behind every bottle is a bunch of exhausted humans in stained T-shirts, juggling hoses, microbiology, and half-eaten cheese toasties. Winemaking is 10% drinking, 90% cleaning sticky things.
But honestly? It’s magic. Messy, marvelous, fermented magic.
So next time you sip something delicious, raise your glass to the cellar rats, the yeast, and the total chaos that made it happen. And if you ever find yourself holding a hose with perfectly good wine spraying everywhere?
Give me call, I know exactly what to do.
