Hello and Welcome to the highly anticipated first sign of
harvest,
Mother Nature is starting to blush! And why not, she is right on time - day 229 of the Julian calendar. The day is August 16th, 2012, but bear in mind this is a leap year. This puts us about 8 days ahead of her coming out party from 2011, day 237.We imagine she relies more on a sun dial, which is just fine for accuracy but not so good for precision. Any abacus users out there? Ernie can count to 10 in binary, but that is a skill sorely lacking in demand these days.
Now those 8 days are not so important
from a start of harvest point of view. We take the time to clean the winery
(again) and continue to sample the wineberries. Sometimes we even sample the
wine from previous vintages. Quality control is clearly a very big part of what
we do!
But those 8 days make a significant
difference as the harvest window begins to close. We have seen "touch and go"
harvests the last couple of years. 2010 gave us the Oregon version of Alfred
Hitchcock's movie “The
Birds.”
They came early and settled right in. But the fruit wasn't ready, so we let it
hang. We reckon we had about 5 tons of Pinot Noir take flight. You can read the
2010 After Action Report
here.
2011 gave us a reprieve with a
stunningly beautiful October. This helped quite a bit because we did not
commence harvest until October 23rd. However, all good things must come to an
end and they did on November 3rd with a wall of rain. Everyone talks about
letting the grapes hang on the vine just a little longer, but we took a lesson
from Wall Street to understand there is nothing wrong with bringing them in just
a bit early. You can read the 2011 After Action Report
here.
So, what does 2012 have in store for
us? Well, we penned a few verses to the old cowpoke song "Ghost Riders in the
Sky." Here is the harvest verse, and you can sing along to the full lyrics here:
Winegrowers you must
try.
Now
we're at the seasons' end with winds and rain, you bet
We've got to pick those grapes, but they aint
ready yet
It seems like forever that we wait for this
one day
Detailed plans we make, but Mother Nature
leads the way
Yipie Meunier, Yipie
Pinot
Satisfaction Syrah and Amalie's
Cuvee
Kindest
Regards,
Dena & Ernie
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