09/30/09 - 6:00pm - Loretta Byrne, COO

Nice Winery - Harvest Up-date! The Chardonnay was higher brix than last year and is now throwing delightful and interesting fruit flavors [pear, banana, citrus] very nice! The fruit was all still cold and arrived very early, 5:30-6:00am. Went directly to the press and was fermented cool, about 55 degrees. We have chilled it even further to about 50 degrees to achieve about 1 brix per day.

We barreled down a portion to finish fermentation in the barrel and the cellar smells spectacular! There is a pervasive 'sizzle' in the cellar also from the fermentation bungs and it is just cooking!
Read more below...

....We will be bringing in one tank into the cellar to facilitate full ML fermentation. The other 2 will be left outside, chilled, to prevent ML fermentation.

The Merlot came in next and was really nice looking fruit...the fermentation on the first 50 tons or so is almost done and we will be pressing on Monday. It has great plum, black cherry and pomegranate jammy flavors and aromas and we will be doing an extended maceration on both the Merlot and Syrah to extract the most color and tannins. We used new yeast, "Aussie Red" according to our winemaker, Mike Gulyash, on both wines!

The Syrah is even showing very nicely - again, good cool fruit, good looking. New yeast and a cool extended maceration to extract color. Cranberry, raspberry with a leather characteristic already. Nice!

The White Mirage is fermenting and is beautiful, fruity ...gorgeous color and great taste already [cherry and cranberry - a little strawberry]. We will be barreling down 2 barrels of this just for fun and richness, just like the 2004 vintage, to blend back into the tank fermented wine. Should give it a great mouth feel. We will stop fermentation by filtering the wine when it is at a higher residual sugar level than last year, between 4 and 5 brix, roughly double last year's vintage. We used white wine yeast to let this wine ferment cool, as well to keep the fruit esters high.

Next in line are the Zinfandel and Pinot Grigio next week ...latter part of the week. Budge said this fruit tastes really nice on the vine and I can't wait to taste it! Cheers! Loretta

Week of 9/21/09: 372 tons crushed...350 to go!

Because it is a later and slower growing period than we experienced last year, it has been a relatively sane harvest so far! We are approximately 50% complete with the roughly 700+ tons of fruit we will be bringing in to the winery this year.

The first lots of Merlot and Syrah are already pressed and racked to settling tanks inside the winery cellar. This wine will be racked several times to remove it from the lees and to keep it 'clean', as will all the wines after they are pressed. Secondary fermentation has commenced!

The 5 different lots of Chardonnay have been fermenting cold and settling the lees in chilled tanks out on the crush pad. Delightful tropical aromas and tastes! The barrel fermented Chardonnay is slowing down and already starting the secondary, or malo-lactic, fermentation. We have topped and consolidated these barrels as the initial fermentation slows down to keep the wine fresh and luscious at this crucial stage.

The Pinot Grigio, a red grape that makes white wine, was whole cluster pressed directly to a fermentation tank and is also fermenting cold to retain flavors and esters. We have also racked 500 gallons of Pinot Grigio to a small fermenter that we will stop at a higher sugar level for a special bottling of sweeter Pinot Grigio. This is something new for us, so I'm excited to see how it will turn out!

The juice for the White Mirage, a blend of Syrah and Merlot, was pulled off the skins and seeds after a few days and fermented together cold in a small fermentation tank. The color is quite a lovely garnet and if the taste is any indication of the final product at this point, I think it will be our best vintage yet.

The first lot of Zinfandel "Primitivo" hand picked from our Mt. Oso Vineyard is in mid-ferment and showing remarkable varietal character already. I love how hour Mt. Oso Zinfandel is so fruit forward!

Over the weekend we received 100+ tons comprised of 3 different clones of Cabernet Sauvignon from Tracy Hills. This fermentation has just started, so we will keep you updated on its progress!

The grapes from our Pope Valley vineyard - Petite Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Verdot - will all be hand harvested this week. The Petite Sirah that has already arrived is the most beautiful fruit - great color and taste, small concentrated berries and picture perfect!

In the next few weeks, we will be receiving more Merlot and Zinfandel from our Mt. Oso Vineyard in Tracy Hills as well as 2 other clones of Cabernet Sauvignon (including our favorite Clone 8) and perhaps even some Montepulciano! We will also be bringing in Petite Sirah purchased from the Canino Ridge Vineyard in Lake County, usually the last grapes to be crushed.

The crew has had the opportunity for adequate sleep so far and has not experienced crazy harvest hours - yet! However, we do enjoy cooking and eating breakfast together when we have fruit arriving at 5:30 am - and getting together on the patio for a barbeque lunch now and then. Good times at the most fun time of year at the winery!