This morning I walked the Nugent Vineyard with our winemaker, Kenneth Juhasz, accompanied by our eminent consultants, Dr. Phil Freese and his wife, Zelma Long. Phil is a born teacher (he taught at the University of California) who headed up viticultural research at the Robert Mondavi Winery for many years. Zelma is a legendary winemaker who also began at Mondavi and achieved renown at Simi Winery and beyond.

We found Botrytis cinerea, the so-called “noble rot,” in some of our Dijon 667 Pinot Noir blocks. In Pinot, botrytis is far from noble. This just reminds you that, in farming, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. It caught us a bit by surprise, ironically, because with the wet spring, we had anticipated possible problems and taken appropriate measures, opening canopies and applying some material (Pristine) before the bunches closed.

Despite our sophisticated tools, nothing substitutes for what Phil calls … More…

This vintage is different – not weird, just different. The big heat wave in July made a change. A few leaves got cooked, yes, but the heat made all the vines mature in a fairly short time. Before the heat, we thought we were late, but then we caught up and the weather has been ideal.

The flavors are very good. You really notice them. Because the flavors are there while the sugars are lower, the grapes taste acidic, but they will quickly come into balance. The canopies are very healthy and balanced this year.

This was a tricky year because it looked like the cluster count was low so yields would be low. Some growers were tempted to leave doubles for yield rather than thin back to one … More…

Our flavors are beautiful this year, and for once flavors are ahead of sugars. That would not be true of a heavier crop left unthinned, where lower sugars are usually accompanied by lower flavor levels.

Because we are trying to produce small amounts of exceptional Pinot Noir, we thin down to one shoot per bud to ensure uniformity. But growers who want larger yields may hedge their bets and not do that. Also, some may say that they thin at veraison (when grapes soften and change color), but they only remove a few green clusters and second crop. Crop level is not our concern – we are likely to drop crop anyway – but we are very concerned with ripeness.

This year the vine ripeness is there by all indicators. The seeds are turning a nice brown, and lignification (green tissue maturing into brown or woody tissue) is occurring. The … More…