This is the first time we're connecting Wine Spectator Video with the Learn Wine forum. Hopefully, the videos will prompt some questions --and discussions-- and we'll all learn more about wine. Whenever we launch a new video, we'll try to post a thread with the same title as the video. Well, here goes!

On Saturday, September 16th, Kate Elia (my partner in adventure on Wine Spectator’s video team) and I caught up with Merry Edwards as she was bringing in her first batch of grapes for the 2006 vintage.

Even though it’s Merry’s 33rd year making wine, we could tell that she was really excited -- and a little nervous. Merry paced around the crush pad, monitoring interns on the sorting table, evaluating stems as they ejected from the destemmer, and checking dry ice levels in the tanks.

Kate and I agreed that it was an amazing morning; we’re thrilled to be able to share it with you.

Do you have any questions about destemming, crushing or sorting? Cold soak? Or anything else Merry talked about? You can find her video in our new Video Theater on the Feature Stories channel.


Cheers!
Gloria and Kate

Thanks for the video. Love her wines (first enjoyed them last year thanks to the generosity of the DAWGS at my first WS off-line). She is both informative and humble. Dug the cold soak explanation and visual.

thanks for the thumbs-up, skosh! it really is fun to see the process and merry was so into it that it was doubly fun.

both kate and i have worked crush in years past and being on the pad with merry brought us right back.

the first thing you notice when you're walking up to the pad are the sounds: the whirr-wack of the destemmer and the pump's thump-thump that's like a heartbeat and the palette truck beeping.

then there's the heady purply floral fragrance of the grapes. I just wish we could have gotten that into the video for you.

and you may not have noticed it cause merry was wearing a hat during much of the interview, but her hair (along with our cameras) were speckled with sticky grape goo that tends to fly out of the stemmer-crusher.

i'm sitting here at my desk grinning just thinking about it/g