I’m making my first posting to this blog on the run. It’s been a rollercoaster harvest, frustrating because everything is so spread out due to the cool weather. The second half of September was mild, and the first week of October cold, cloudy and misty with half an inch of rain. We’re just holding out for flavors.

On the bright side, we did get good flavors in many blocks, and we got the majority of our harvest in before the rain. It’s the fruit in blocks that we usually pick at the end anyway that is still out there. We brought in what needed picking, like some Martini selection Pinot Noir that is thin-skinned and might have fallen apart after enduring the rain.

The occurrence of botrytis this year … 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…

We are on the brink of September, and my very first blog entry concerns an important “day in the life” of a Pinot producer. At Joe Nugent’s fairly youthful vineyard (planted in 1997) in the Russian River Valley, we have a large crop, in contrast to the relatively poor sets we saw here in the previous three vintages.

Following a wet spring that did provide good conditions at bloom, an excellent set has given us big, full clusters with no shot berries. Grapevines are self-pollinating, but many factors affect fruit set, ranging from the vine’s health and vigor to the way we’ve pruned it, and weather has a direct bearing on crop size. During the period of bloom and set, it’s often too wet, too dry, too hot … More…