We are picking our last grapes of the season this morning: Grenache and Counoise. It is supposed to start raining this afternoon—probably about an inch, locally. For those that need to wait it out, the grapes can probably handle it. But our stuff is ready and ripe. I take a certain satisfaction in picking our [...]
Archive for the ‘Harvest’ Category
Finishing Our 2012 Harvest
End Of The “Perfect” 2012 Harvest
The next couple of days are the last time this season that the fruit at our Estate will look this good. Monday it will start raining, with another rainy front forecast for Wednesday and another for Friday (thought the latest forecast update suggests these later two storms may slide to the north of us). A [...]
2012 Harvest: Halftime
Welcome to the 2012 Harvest Halftime Show… Yes, that’s right—it’s the second week of October and I think we are about halfway through the harvest. So far I have brought in 32 tons of Pinot Noir from our Estate vineyard, and drips and dabs of a few other varieties, mostly for customers. By comparison, this [...]
Necessary Pre-Harvest Shopping
My industry friends will recognize these! The other day my vineyard manager asked “so are you going to buy more Macros for harvest?” Yes. Yes, I am. And more T-bins, too. I find it a little amazing that I have been doing this long enough that the price of a Macro-bin has more than doubled [...]
2011 Vintage—Not That Bad!
“I have never seen anything like this…” I heard this sentiment expressed by more growers and winemakers during the 2011 harvest than ever before in my 25 years of doing this. I said it myself any number of times. It’s not that any one thing about this vintage stood out on its own as unusual [...]
Here Comes The Rain
Here comes the first rain of the season. The radar loop shows a slow eastward progression; most of the motion is southwest to northeast. Forecast total rain accumulations have increased from yesterday’s projections. Dislike. ShareTweet
2011 Vintage – Quick Harvest Update
Sunday afternoon; outside the overcast is increasing and westerly wind rising as the first of a series of cold fronts approaches the area. Rain on tap for tomorrow and then for Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Forecast has advanced the timing and decreased the amount of rain expected from the system. We really don’t have [...]
2011 Vintage & The Rain
Sampled the vineyard yesterday, confirming that Syrah (approaching 23° Brix) is two full weeks ahead of Pinot (not quite 21° Brix) this year. Awesomely weird; feels like down is suddenly up. Jennifer Thomson tweeted this morning that “Diageo reports they are bringing Chard & Pinot in around the clock for next 72 hrs. Anything 23.5° [...]
No Harvest Yet :-(
It is the day before the autumnal equinox and I haven’t picked grape one. A week ago I was sweating bullets over this, in spite of it being cold outside–in fact because it was cold outside. I have been mostly tweeting it up from the vineyard this year, but it is time to make a [...]
Harvest 2010 — Initial Debrief
I’ve gone on and on here about how this was such a tough vintage. I saw some really awful vineyard problems (luckily, few in our vineyard), heard some unprecedented horror stories from growers and winemakers, and tasted some pretty sketchy wines (thankfully, none of them in our winery). When the 2010 Grape Crush Report comes [...]
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Westwood Winery