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Harvest is finally over!
Now it's in the hands of Ed and Dave, our beloved winemakers.
As old farmers will say "no two harvests are quite the same..." and that certainly holds true this year.
Quick recap, grape harvesting started late August with us gathering much of the white wine varieties. The weather was mild and the white wine harvest went smoothly and wrapped up in late September. At this point, Pinot Noir was the only red wine variety harvested.
It seemed as though we might need to wait quite a while for the rest of the red wine varieties, and we just sort of sat on our hands waiting. Even if sugar levels were close, we didn't think flavors were present in the fruit, and needed to wait accordingly.
Then early October got warmer, and the grapes matured nicely, so we started picking the Petite Sirah. However as it got even warmer, almost I dare say really hot in October, all varieties were ready to pick or close to being needed to be picked.
Vine health is very critical at this point, if vines shut down, no real ripening of the fruit will take place and you only gain sugar through berry dehydration.
A couple lots were harvested with higher sugar than normal, knowing it is always better than not having enough sugar, so we hurried through Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Primitivo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc and finally, by October 16th, we brought in the last lot to the winery.
As always, now is the time to come join us and see the fruits of our labors. We would love to see you!
Cheers,
Joe
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