“The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched” Henry David Thoreau
It seems like it was a year spent waiting. Spring and bud break seemed like it would never come. Summer seemed to come in starts and stops. We waited all year for a heat that really only materialized on occasions when we wished not to have to deal with wilting heat; the rest of the summer was 26% below our normal temperatures. We waited for ripening of the grapes. We waited and waited. Finally, with the olive harvest upon us, we could not wait any longer.
The Zinfandel was harvested October 4. The brix sneaked up on us and came in at an astounding 28.5, a whopping 17.8% alcohol. It is destined to accompany chocolate as a late harvest wine. It stormed most of that week of primary fermentation, but it provided a perfect backdrop to decorate for our Harvest Celebration with the family, which we celebrated our traditional third weekend of October and which will be covered in a separate post, but one of the highlights of the weekend was that the barn was officially renamed The Wine Barn. Then, we sat back to wait for the Cabernet.
With storms backing up in the Pacific and the olive harvest days away, the decision was made that we had to pick and could wait no longer. We harvested the Cabernet on November 5th, two months later than last year, and our numbers came in nearly the same. We had hoped for our brix to be in the 26 range, but it came in closer to 25, yet, we cannot complain. We received numbers most professional growers hope for. Despite having thinned the fruit by 50% midseason, the yield came in almost three times larger than last year's harvest. We didn't order enough barrels. It's always something.
No sooner were the grapes picked, crushed and destemmed than the storms began to move in again. It has become blustery, gray, and cold, and the summer that never was has officially given over to autumn. So as we spend hours this week punching down the cap and sanitizing utensils over and over and prepare to press next weekend, we continue to dream of how our wines will taste and hope that we can do justice to the numbers we have been given and dream of winter days in two years when we can sit in front of a fire with a glass of Cabernet or Zin from the summer that never was, 2010.
Cheers!
The Ranch Manager
The Zinfandel was harvested October 4. The brix sneaked up on us and came in at an astounding 28.5, a whopping 17.8% alcohol. It is destined to accompany chocolate as a late harvest wine. It stormed most of that week of primary fermentation, but it provided a perfect backdrop to decorate for our Harvest Celebration with the family, which we celebrated our traditional third weekend of October and which will be covered in a separate post, but one of the highlights of the weekend was that the barn was officially renamed The Wine Barn. Then, we sat back to wait for the Cabernet.
With storms backing up in the Pacific and the olive harvest days away, the decision was made that we had to pick and could wait no longer. We harvested the Cabernet on November 5th, two months later than last year, and our numbers came in nearly the same. We had hoped for our brix to be in the 26 range, but it came in closer to 25, yet, we cannot complain. We received numbers most professional growers hope for. Despite having thinned the fruit by 50% midseason, the yield came in almost three times larger than last year's harvest. We didn't order enough barrels. It's always something.
No sooner were the grapes picked, crushed and destemmed than the storms began to move in again. It has become blustery, gray, and cold, and the summer that never was has officially given over to autumn. So as we spend hours this week punching down the cap and sanitizing utensils over and over and prepare to press next weekend, we continue to dream of how our wines will taste and hope that we can do justice to the numbers we have been given and dream of winter days in two years when we can sit in front of a fire with a glass of Cabernet or Zin from the summer that never was, 2010.
Cheers!
The Ranch Manager
Comments
Post a Comment