Hello and Welcome,
This is the second and final part
of the September Climate Update.
Yes it is true; we open a little
something special the night before all the hoopla begins at daybreak. It
usually has been around a long while and always has a cage that requires 6
twists to the left. Flutes are involved. While we don’t produce any, we do grow
all the components - Champagne Deconstructed.
Say what you will, but we call it inspiration.
We held out as long as we could
and began harvest operations on Monday, September 29, 2014. The Walnut tree
gave us a subtle but recognizable signal that the time had come to pluck those
ripe wineberries from the vine. And pluck we did that day with a beautiful 15
ton harvest. That’s 1,500 buckets of hand harvested love!
It was a bittersweet moment that
quickly gave way to euphoria. Being the farmers we are, let’s dwell on the
bittersweet. The euphoria will have to wait. Our goal is to harvest wineberries
when they are at their peak of flavor maturity. We employ several techniques to
determine when this azimuth has occurred. Some are technical, some are sensory
and some are from the weatherman, which is the least reliable of all three.
Once the decision is made to
harvest, you cannot look back. You make the plan the night before of which
blocks are going to be picked and in what order. The tractor routes are laid
out so that we can always have empty bins ready for the cluster pluckers.
(Note: we are referring to the ones on foot, not on wing.)
And then about 3:35 AM you
hear that little voice in your head saying that, while it is all good, the
weather is going to hold and you could wait a few more days. You must resist
this Siren’s song! You don’t want premature vinification, but it gets the
wheels turning and the cogs are set in motion. Are we going to miss out on
great aromas and flavors if we start plucking away in just about 4 hours?
HA! If you have ever
tried to time trades in the stock market, you know exactly what that
voice sounds like. That is when we lean back on 15 years of experience here,
with this piece of dirt, and say “Farm it!” We are taking that fruit when it’s
ready and according to plan. And besides, once the grapes are removed from the
vine, there is no going back. You own that decision for the rest of your life,
therefore it was the right one – by definition.
Now the euphoria can proceed in
full regalia! There is nothing quite like seeing 15 tons of perfectly ripe Pinot Noir laid out in tote bins ready to become wine. Each and every action
that we took, and weather event that occurred, is reflected in that fruit. It
will make the vintage what it is in the forthcoming wine. And that is how we
get to “Winemaking: The
Continuation of Terroir by Other Means”®
Let’s have a quick look at the
numbers and then we need to get back to do punchdown. Yeah, if the shoe fits,
it is a long day for you.
We recorded 180.2 degree days for
the second half of September providing a total of 445.6 degree days for the
month. Rainfall totaled 1.17 inches beginning on September 18th with
the biggest measurement of 1.00 inch on the 24th. The astute reader
will note we waited for a little shot of rain before we took our first
wineberries. We round out the growing season to date with 2,331.6 degree days
and 7.96 inches of rain.
But wait, there is October yet to
go and we are still hanging about 60 tons of fruit! Will there be more rain?
Maybe some rot? How about the birds, are they early this year? Yeah, it’s going
to be a full on Cluster Pluck…
Our final FLOG will be the 2014
Harvest After Action Report where all will be revealed, well mostly. During
harvest, Ernie posted daily updates on Twitter. Click here if you want to read the tweets and follow along: Amalie Robert on Twitter.
Kindest Regards,
Dena & Ernie
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