Last Friday, just before we left work for the long Labor Day weekend, Nabor and I sat down to discuss where we are with the 2008 vintage. That conversation follows. The holiday weekend brought moderate temperatures, but this week is warming up again and the heat should peak on Thursday when we plan to start picking the Dijon 115 clone planted around my house.

NC:  I saw Anne’s last post about thinning an already light crop. I prefer to say that we are adjusting the crop, improving it. We are balancing each vine, one by one, according to the capacity of each shoot, whether it can accommodate one, two or zero clusters.

It’s important how you approach the vineyard. We have a commitment to quality. Adjusting is not a formula and not simple. You must adjust to the crop size and situation each year, and we have to maintain our focus - quality.

There are growers whose definition of a good vintage is three clusters per shoot. For our project, a good year is when the fruit we harvested tastes good and has all the components we want in balance. But it’s important to have that commitment, because otherwise you can come up with hundreds of excuses.

AMR: Yes, low yields don’t change the other reasons that we thin - for intensity, uniformity of ripeness and even for weak shoots. This year the cold weather affected the caliber of the shoots.

NC:  Well, we prepared our vines for this heat.

AMR:  Yes, we’ve just had a couple of days of near 100-degree heat. It reached 101 and 103 in the town of Sonoma. But how the grapes are affected depends upon where they are on the ripeness scale. If they are at 20 degrees Brix (roughly 20% sugar content) or less, heat is not a problem.

Earlier this week we were at 21 in our Russian River Valley vineyard, and I had slightly higher sugar readings in the few acres around my house. We’re not that far in our Carneros estate blocks.

We have a strategy for water and the leaf water pressure readings tell us we’re OK right now. I think the vineyards have been slowing down a bit. Perhaps they are more affected by virus this year?

NC:  I think we’ll be at 22 Brix and above within a week. It’s been a cool August up until now, and the flavors are already there.

AMR: The few days of heat we’ve had didn’t stress the vines. We averaged around 82 degrees F. through August. The warmer days were anomalies. For example, on the 12th it was 80, then 93 on the 13th, then back to 80 on the 14th. The weather has been pretty ideal, and with the cool temperatures, the humidity has stayed pretty high.

NC:  I’ve noticed that when we squeeze the grape samples, the berries are cool.

AMR:  This is an interesting time of year for flavors. As I walk the vineyards, I may think that we have a while to wait, and then in a day or two there will be a big transformation, and the flavors are there.

NC:  I notice that the potential is already there, but they are not quite ripe yet. It’s like a banana that’s a little under-ripe. It is still slightly green and won’t peel easily, but the flavor precursors are there. You can tell what it’s going to be. Then within two days, it’s perfect.

AMR:  We seem to get heat quite often in late August. Perhaps we’ll fall into the luxury of hang time. Everything is in good shape. We’d just like to slow down enough to get flavor development rather than sugar accumulation.

We’re always thinking things like if we shorten our canopy, can we artificially slow down ripening and get full flavors at lower sugar levels? We want the vine to senesce slowly so that we get a nice breakdown of the skins and don’t push through that too rapidly.

NC:  It’s nine months from pruning to harvest and I compare that process to pregnancy. The vines go from a tiny bud to a ripe crop. We want the vines to go into labor, but not until they are ready. We want a full term. We don’t want heat to induce them.

AMR:  At this point, we are prepared. We have done our work. Now we pay attention. If we have heat spells, we act accordingly. We’re ready. If it rains, we have opened up the canopies. It’s all manageable.

NC:  Yes, it’s like a final exam. I feel that I’m prepared for my test.

AMR:  And we don’t over-prepare or over-react. We do it in steps. And we have other tools to determine where we are in that process.

NC:  Even if it’s hot all of the Labor Day weekend, we’re ok.

AMR:  I love the harvest. I’m ready. I wish we were at 24 Brix and could pick now. The decisions are fun to make. It’s like solving a puzzle, managing the logistics. Even though all of our blocks are at a similar level of ripeness, we wouldn’t let the Martini selection hang. It’s thin-skinned, whereas our Roederer selection and 777 Dijon clone can stand more heat.

NC:  I’m starting to envision how we will move our tractors and bins.

AMR:  I think we’ll follow a familiar pattern. First should be the vineyard around my house. Then the early-ripening Dijon clones in our Russian River vineyard. Finally, the Carneros estate fruit on these heavier clay soils will be ready, usually by order of clones and selections.

I’m ready to start. But first, Nabor, have a wonderful three-day weekend.

NC:  Thanks. You, too.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites