In our Russian River Valley vineyard, where yields were a third of normal due to frost damage, the sugars in our Dijon (early ripening) Pinot Noir clones were at a sensitive stage when the heat hit over Labor Day weekend. The heat was compounded by single digit humidity. We decided to push through the hot weather and ignore the Brix (approximate percentage of sugar) readings. We felt we didn’t have quite the concentration of flavors we wanted and that the tannins and skins were still a little green. To compromise matters further, we had some variability in ripening because of the frost. We picked in the second week of September.

We made only a very small quantity of wine and we experienced a little difficulty getting a few fermentations to completion. I’ve heard there were a number of stuck fermentations this year, probably because heat can interfere with micronutrients needed to finish. But I’m happy to report that we have very concentrated and ripe wine that should be spectacular. I found it hard to sleep for a few nights wondering if we had made the wrong decision, but had we picked earlier, I’m convinced the wines would have been a little lean and green.

The situation in Carneros was also a little weird, but good. We went into the heat there with lower sugars, probably due to a combination of clones and selections, older vines and some virus. Then we saw the numbers spike. Anne took it all in. Normally, she pours over the numbers, but last fall she decided not to look at them. She had great intuition and her decision was helpful to the rest of us. We waited.

Moderate weather came on September 7th and soon the numbers plummeted, with Brix readings dropping as much as four points. I’ve never seen that before. The sugars remained fairly low throughout a month of hang time. We completed harvest on the October 3rd.

The wines are thoroughly ripe with fresh, concentrated fruit and great color. They have behaved like cooler vintage wines in the cellar, slower to develop and unfold as they ultimately were slow to develop in the vineyard. They are very solid, beautiful wines. There are no dogs in the winery.

My big fear is having bad wine in the cellar that I have to try to fix. But in the vineyard, I would rather push the limits and make the best decision to pick on the right day. Our interns were going nuts standing around waiting for us to pull the trigger. They looked at the numbers we were getting and scratched their heads, but the development we wanted just wasn’t there.  In the end,

Kenneth reports that all of the wines are good and stable, so he can relax. We carefully watched a couple of our Russian River blocks that were hard hit by frost and then ripened quickly with the heat. Something happens when fruit is stressed that increases the chances of getting a stuck fermentation at the end. Because we are very hands-off and gentle, we try to nudge through and we succeeded.

Fruit from other blocks also went through some weather extremes but had enough time to recover and ticked along ripening slowly. That fruit was very sound when it came in, so overall we had it pretty easy in the cellar in 2008.

It’s a silent time in the vineyard. Our crew is gone for the holidays and nothing is happening. We seeded our cover crop for erosion control and the rain has established it. Now the rain is percolating down into the soils to alleviate our drought conditions.

With all that’s going on in the world, we all want a positive and prosperous 2009. Even though we had a tough year farming, mother nature moves on, and we must, too. The beauty of the practice of pruning, which we begin next month, is that it’s a ritualistic taking away of the past year, a process of cleaning up for a fresh start.

As we move into the new year, we will have a new young man join our team. John interned with us and he will now assist Kenneth with winemaking.

January will bring our annual tasting of the previous vintage with famed winemaker Zelma Long and her accomplished viticulturist husband, Dr. Phil Freese. We treasure the perspective and insights they bring to us.

We’ll also look at various clones and selections of Pinot Noir for some new plantings in our Russian River vineyard. And we hope by late spring or early summer to open a small tasting room in Carneros and offer vineyard tours by appointment.

I will have the opportunity to attend some events, including the Best of the Best tasting in Miami and the World of Pinot Noir. As in any business and industry, there is an annual rhythm.

I’m so glad that a big part of my life is agriculture, because nature sweeps you along in its flow. You have to accept its terms, but you also have to keep your own spontaneity and creativity in dealing with it. I’m grateful as well that our project involves estate grown fruit, because even though, for example, we experienced large frost losses this year, we have to take the long view and not attempt shortcuts that will come back later to haunt us. Our reward will be a deeper understanding of our craft.

We all join in wishing you a wonderful new year.

There’s no rush at the winery to get lots out of tanks. There’s plenty of time to do the work, so we’re crossing t’s and dotting i’s. For normally high alcohol producers, this year will be considerably lower. Our alcohols aren’t normally that high so they won’t be down very dramatically. Acids are not high, but certainly not low. Nothing tastes over-ripe. It’s all concentrated but fresh with great softening in the skins. I’m not sure of what’s happening south of us, but everything I’ve tasted this year from the North Coast – Carneros, Russian River Valley, Sonoma Coast and Mendocino – is stunning.

This is the kind of hang time I like. In the past I have heard about hang time in 95-degree weather and that makes me really uncomfortable. This year we’re coasting along at 75 degrees. Unless the fruit just screams to be picked, there’s no reason to rush. Sometimes you do walk into the vineyard and there’s great intensity of flavors, ripe skins and seeds, perfect acidity and softening berries and it all tells you – pick it! We’ve seen some of that and should see a lot more soon.

The small amount of rain we received had no effect. The fruit is still sound and will be ok out there until next week. A little more rain could even help break down skins and give us better extraction in the cellar.

My take on the 2007 vintage at this point is that it’s terribly promising and should give us pretty rich wines with nice acids. I usually make that judgment in the vineyard and then wait until after malolactic fermentation (bacterial conversion of appley malic acid to buttery lactic acid) to re-evaluate the character of the wines. Fermentations are all standard and going well, but wines are difficult to judge at this stage. Right now we are bulletproof. The vintage is finished in terms of quality and it is excellent. This is an enviable position to be in.

This morning we sampled what we’ve brought in to the winery so far. First we tasted the Dijon 115 Pinot Noir clone from Nugent Vineyard in the Russian River Valley, which we farm. This fruit was harvested last Thursday, September 13, and inoculated yesterday, so it’s like, as Kenneth said, “kid’s juice.” I noticed its nice weight and delicious fruit, and Kenneth thought it had purity and focus, great fruit with good length.

Then we sampled another lot picked the following day. The juice showed typical first-day fermentation aromas of hay as well as fruit tones and seemed deeper, darker and more expansive to me. Kenneth described it as open and opulent.

Next we tasted some lots from Carneros, off of seven acres of vines planted around my house that we call Blue Farm. The first lot was harvested two weeks ago, on September 4, and has almost fermented dry – our first wine of 2007! We remarked that this was a bigger, more complex wine than from previous vintages. Kenneth noted that this Dijon 115 clone had thicker skins than usual and was totally ripe.

Kenneth said it came in at 24.7 degrees Brix (approximate percentage of sugar). There was very little dehydration so, as he said, those are “real numbers,” and the best we’ve ever had there. The wine is beautiful. I think we have great balance this year and we didn’t have to thin or trim very much. Kenneth thinks the drier soils may have played a role; I agree that may have evened things up.

We moved on to a tank holding a Swan selection from Blue Farm, and we thought this was wonderful, very heady and aromatic and full in the mouth.
Next was a Dijon 777 from Blue Farm, which had lagged behind in sugar a bit this year. It was more closed and brooding, but the tannins that characterize this clone really danced on the tongue.

A taste of Dijon 667 from our Donum vineyards showed intense fruit – I found cranberry and Kenneth said raspberry and both of us found a hint of something else, faintly herbal. I really like the 667 clone because it offers interesting combinations of aromas and flavors.

We moved on to taste fruit from Ferguson Block, from a moderately high density planting of Dijon 667 (4A07 block) in which we did thinning trials described in our September 7 post. We harvested on September 11 and our control lot was thinned normally. We found lovely fruit flavors with good concentration.

Next we tried the juice from vines that had been thinned to one-cluster-per-shoot. Our lab results showed this lot was 30% higher than the control in tannins. We found it to be further behind in fermentation and thus higher in sugar and sweeter, but we also found more fruit and a real spicy, black pepper component that persisted on the palate.

The lot that was alternately thinned one and two clusters per shoot (which we call “one-two”) was way behind in fermentation and so sweet that the tannins were masked. It will be interesting to track these lots.

Tomorrow we pick at Nugent Vineyards, Dijon 667 which tastes just wonderful on the vine. This has the makings of an ideal vintage. If it continues in this direction, it could be a benchmark year for demonstrating the potential of all our blocks. That would give us a clear target to aim for. As Kenneth remarked, “It’s all there in the juice.” The juice and nascent wines are wonderfully rich, fruity and concentrated with no apparent hollows or holes.

We parted ways after discussing an interesting cool weather system that is moving into this area from the north and could produce rain twice – possibly Wednesday night and maybe again late Friday. Our canopies are open and the vines are in good shape, so we won’t worry. It never helps to worry, anyway.