Processing Nectarines for a new wine

Marc Stopkie owner/winemaker of Adair Vineyards is known for his Peche wine, made from Hudson Valley white peaches. In fact, his Peche had the highest score at this years Hudson Valley Wine Competition. The creation of the Peche was an experiment. It began a while ago when a orchard had some weather damage to their peach crop and they couldn't sell the peaches at market. They asked Marc if he would like to purchase some and try to make a peach wine. Hence, the birth of Peche. Marc tells me it's the Peche is the most popular wine in the tasting room. Every year Marc purchases 2 tons of peaches and produces his Peche which is sold in 375 ML bottles.

This year has been a tough year for the Hudson Valley in regards to weather. We've had lots of rain as well has localized hail all throughout the spring and summer. It seems that the same orchard which Marc purchases his peaches from suffered damaging hail to their nectarine crop and asked Marc if he would like to try to make a nectarine wine. Since this is how the Peche was born, why not.
Processing a stone fruit wine takes time. First the pit is removed by hand from the fruit. Marc explained that there are machines that do this task, but he prefers to do it himself. After the pit is removed, it is necessary to remove the little brown nob where the fruit was attached to the tree. Believe it or not that little nob thing contains arsenic. Wouldn't want any casualties associated with your wine.
Next Marc brings the fruit to his crusher. It is now all hand crushed before being put in the fermentation tanks.
Marc then adds a late harvest yeast to the nectarines and the magic begins...fermentation. This year he will make about 120 cases of the Nectarine Wine which still doesn't have a name. He hopes the wine will be ready in early December.

After we were finished with the nectarines, the crew started on the peaches. To view more pictures from the day of processing Nectarines click here.

I leave you with a video I put together. By no means am I a videographer, but I try my best.