The Harvest Diet Plan
Assistant winemaker Bryan Kays and winemaker Zeke Neeley out tasting some young malbec vines.
During harvest, we walk in the vineyards every day, tasting grapes from clusters to get a better idea of whether the block is ready for harvest. We make a couple of passes through each vineyard block, popping a grape into our mouths every so often. We are tasting the grapes to not only see if they are flavorful but if the seeds are mature (crunchy and brown), if the skins are mature (red grapes skins should have some astringency) and if the acidity and sweetness seem in balance.
Wine grapes are much sweeter than the Thompson Seedless that you get in the supermarket. So to avoid the physical ailments that would arise after eating a couple hundred grapes we make a habit of spitting the grapes out after tasting them. Even so, you can’t avoid swallowing a significant amount of juice.
Anyway, earlier this week, after inspecting several blocks which involved a couple of miles of walking and sampling a bucket’s-worth of grapes, Jon Ruel, our Director of Viticulture and Winemaking, wondered out loud whether we were gaining or losing weight on these trips. Intrigued, I did a little research.
Based on the following assumptions:
- A single grape weighs a gram
- 20% of a wine grape is sugar
- While sampling the grape we consume 1/2 of the sugar
- sugar is 4.5 calories/gram
We consume 0.45 calories for every grape sampled.
Walking at a brisk pace, a 160 lbs man burns 80 calories per mile.
A mile has 1760 one-yard steps.
80 calories per mile divided by 0.45 calories per grape = 178 grapes could be sampled per mile.
1760 steps divided by 178 grapes means that we need to take roughly 10 steps between each grape sampled to not lose ground in the our endless struggle with our waistlines.
Add to that some spastic pin-wheeling after walking through six-foot wide spider webs and we’ve got ourselves an exercise program. Now, if I could only figure out how to avoid eating donuts during harvest I’d be sitting pretty! Well, I’d better get back to work before people start getting the idea that winemakers have nothing to do during harvest!
Cheers,
Zeke Neeley
Winemaker
