This post will be really boring, but that is what makes it great!

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The question is how to get 4,000 gallons of grape juice chilled and into this tanker when it is all chilled and comfortable in a large tank at the winery, so that is can be comfortably transported from Meadow, which is close to Lubbock, all across the state to Sisterdale, Texas, which is close to San Antonio?

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In a recent post, we left off with the juice from the white grapes pressed from the skins and pumped into one of these large tanks. Today, I’ll show you how we then transport it to the winery that will make it into lovely wine.

So, the question is: how do we get the juice from these large tanks to the wineries?

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First we need to keep things cold, so we have leased a chiller for this harvest. We are purchasing one that will be installed at our winery a short time that will be similar to this one.

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The chiller makes sure that the juice to kept cold in the tanks. We use the little red pump shown to send the juice through the hose to…

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Let’s see where this is going…

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Keep following the hose…

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And here we are. The hose feeds the juice into a tanker that will not only transport the juice, but also keep it nice as chilled. Just like milk is transported.

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It only took 15 minutes to send 4,000 gallons to this tanker. That may be boring, but that is great news for us. This way we can send more Texas grape juice to wineries around the state, so that we can all enjoy more great Texas wine.

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Then the “empty” bins are loaded on an eight-wheeler to go home. If there were white grapes loaded on this eighteen-wheeler, it would be very difficult to chill the load enough to prevent quality loss and fermentation of the grapes on the ride across the state.

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Red grapes are often transported in bins because the wineries need the grapes in tact with their skins to make just the type of wine that is their goal. Here are some bins waiting and ready to take red grapes to Hye Meadow Winery. But that is another story for another day.

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We had friends on our Facebook page guess what these were. We got answers ranging from straws for barrel tastings to large rolling pins so when Cliff or the kids get out of line that Betty could reach them across the vineyard?

Now those are both really good ideas, both they are actually insulated pipe that we will be installing tomorrow, to send gycolo through the system to keep everything cold all along the way.

More on what is happening at the winery soon.

Blessings,

Betty

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