Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

Heritage Zin - 2.5 lb. cluster    Heritage Zin       The 2013 Cabernet    

Ready to hit the vineyard at 5:07 a.m. -- wait, it's still dark. The 2013 AyO Dusi Zinfandel The 2013 AyO Dusi Zinfandel The 2013 AyO Dusi Zinfandel The stems, which will go back into the vineyard The must, safely tucked under dry ice and plastic The future site of the AyO olive grove

The rancho wine grapes look the best they have ever looked and the chemical tests bear that out.  Additionally, they taste the way they should and the seeds are brown and crunchy, so are the stems.   What are you waiting for, one might ask?   Ducks are being placed in their rows -- and you know how well ducks work in rows.  We believe our yields will be exceptional this year and therefore need additional bins, and will drive north to pick those up on Tuesday.  In the meantime, the vintner/chemist (and we use those terms very loosely), will run one last set of numbers to see how the harvest will be scheduled.  The balance of Tuesday will be spent cleaning and sanitizing the barrel room floors, the crusher-destemmer, the bins, all of our buckets, all of our picking tools, so we're ready to go at sunrise on Wednesday, September 4th.   We don't know our sequence yet or if it will be concurrent or consecutive for the t...