BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- Boston's newest winery just got their first shipment of grapes, and winemakers at the facility are celebrating their "first crush."
City Winery just opened this week.
"For me, it's Opening Day at Fenway Park with the Super Bowl and everything, NBA finals, every single thing in the world for me," head winemaker Steven Feckee told WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens.
Workers handle the four-and-a-half tons of grapes. (Carl Stevens/WBZ NewsRadio 1030)
Workers there are in the process of turning the 4 1/2 tons of grapes--which were just shipped in from the west coast--into wine.
"That'll yield us about 150 gallons of juice per ton, so we're looking at somewhere in the vicinity of 900 gallons of juice," Feckee said.
That translates to about 10 big barrels of wine--or around 3,000 bottles.
The grapes, French varietals grown in the United States, were picked in Washington state's Yakima Valley.
But they don't stomp the grapes--that isn't how it works anymore.
"Long gone are the days of people using their feet," Feckee said. "They still do it in some traditional methods, but now we use more advanced machinery."
Steven Feckee. (Carl Stevens/WBZ NewsRadio 1030)
Instead, the workers shovel the grapes into a machine that rips the stems out and crushes them, and then the juice flows into large containers.
The wine from these grapes will be ready to bottle in ten to sixteen months. The process from crush to bottling takes a long time, but City Winery cuts that process down by serving their wines from a keg.
"The majority of our wines are served to our customer by the glass, so we keg out our wines," Feckee said. "If we were going to bottle, the ones we do bottle will have a little bit longer process. We have to filter those ... everything here in keg, we kind of shorten the process ... it actually gives the customer a better and more vibrant product."
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports