24 Hours of Carignane

12:30am Friday, Sept. 5th starts the 24 hour Carignane road trip. Two guys, one truck and trailer and 5,ooo lb of old vine Carignane.

Little sleep, XM radio and hundreds of miles to drive - it's the middle of night towing a flat bed and driving in Bob's Luxury-Truck. We arrive in Oakley at 5:30 in the morning and weigh in at the local scale and grab a quick bite and coffee at the only place open - micky-d's.

Picking starts on time but our picking slot is delayed, so I use the time to clean bins while Bob snaps a few shots of the old vines in the Evangelho vineyard. The fruit finally comes out of the field and it looks great. Once loaded and the 6 bins are tied down - were maybe an hour and a half behind my schedule. In route back toward 101 south we cleverly use the delay to our favor and stop in Dublin for BBQ at an old favorite of mine Armadillo Willies. We arrive just as they open.

Back on the road and after a few miles we do a driver switch. Now I'm behind the wheel of the Lux-Truck pulling the fruit to make the next Toucan Wines Carignane. Looking back I notice what seems to be grapes flying off the trailer. Turned out to be what was left of a trailer tire. I pull over, fortunate that the other tire held the weight on this loaded 9000 lb trailer, facing another delay at getting these grapes safely in the winery.

On the side of the road in Gilroy, 100 degrees outside, and after a run-around from a local towing service we hook-up with Bruce's Tire who get to us in 10 minutes, replaces the tire, checks the pressure all around - putting us back on the road. Of course it didn't hurt that Bob had high-speed Internet access and a computer in the Lux-Truck to find the right resource.

Bob's back behind the wheel, XM Radio, and we're jamming to get to the nearest dry-ice store before closing. Arriving back at the Toucan farm we unload the bins and noticed one of the other tires on the trailer was starting to separate and had gone flat. That was our second lucky break.

We crushed the fruit (with the kind help of neighbor Paul and Terrie of course), and cleaned up the mess of leafs, fruit pieces, and bins.

Once finished for the night and a beer in my hand I was able to look back at one of the craziest 24 hours in recent memory.

A big thank you to Bob for joining me on wine-train trip, his Lux-Truck, trailer, Internet from the road, and a successful 24 hours of Carignane.

Also thank you to Paul for hanging with us way into the evening to get the crush finished.

These pictures taken by Bob are 120 year old Zinfandel vines in the Evangelho vineyard.