Thanks to our Harvest Helpers
Our Harvest Team
There is a sigh of relief that has filled the winery as the last of the Norton is barreled down. This marks the official end to harvest, and everyone has begun to relax. While the harvest crew works diligently to clean the winery post-harvest, Jenni and I have begun to discuss the next bottling in January. I now have two harvests under my belt here at Chrysalis and while I feel a huge sense of accomplishment, I want to give a very heartfelt and special thanks to our 2020 harvest crew. This year we were fortunate to find two incredibly passionate people to assist with harvest.
The first harvest intern I would like to introduce is Anthony Vaccaro, while he’s a guy of very few words, and I mean very few, he is one of the coolest people I have had the pleasure of sharing a crush pad with. Anthony was born and raised in New Jersey, but graduated Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in Food Science. Shortly after graduation he made his way out to California for a crash course harvest with Louis Martini Winery. Anthony further cultivated his interest in Denver Colorado while working at Carboy Winery. There he worked with some interesting varietals like Petit Pearl and Teroldego.
While he had a great time working on the west coast, Anthony wanted to see what an east coast harvest was like and landed a 2020 internship with us here at Chrysalis Vineyards. Like all of us here, Anthony has taken a liking to the Norton grape and his favorite wine to sip after a long day of work is the 2019 Norton Barrel Select. Though harvest has come to an end here, Anthony has decided to head to Chile to experience harvest at a biodynamic winery. We wish him the best of luck!
Our other intern this season is Kelly Allen. She is our harvest enologist and has spent countless hours using the spectrophotometer. She has been the guiding star on the science side of things. Kelly caught the wine bug a few years ago while working in a local vineyard. From there she decided to pursue her newfound passion in the wine sales side of things. Kelly worked as a sales rep for a local distributor called Free Run, where she was able to explore wines made by small producers in Europe. Her palate leans heavily towards Italian wines and wines that express a sense of place.
Outside of the lab, Kelly spends all her free time running a local CSA called Artemisia Farms, which focuses heavily on “sustainability, biodiversity, community, and culture”. All of the produce grown through Artemisia Farms showcases their growing sites' diversity and the importance of keeping food pathways as local as possible to reinforce local communities. With harvest winding to a close Kelly has begun working on new projects, exploring bitters production for cocktails, developing recipes for aromatized wines, and one day starting her own vineyard and winery. We cannot wait to see what Kelly does next!
I want to personally thank Anthony and Kelly for spending long days with me in the lab and on the crush pad. They’ve both worked extremely hard to make sure that no grape was neglected, no wine missed a punch down, and no drop of wine stained a barrel. Chrysalis Vineyards can bring another great vintage of wine to our customers because of you both! Good luck and thank you so much!