On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of tasting some of our 2009 Pinot Noirs from tank and barrel with Kenneth Juhasz and John Harley. Tasting that fresh juice and new wine allowed us to experience the vintage directly and provided an unhurried moment to reflect on it together.

This year began with a relatively cool, dry spring and moderate weather that continued through the summer. It occurred to us that the last hot vintage we have had was 2004. While we feared the advent of high heat in late August and early September this year, we merely had a few blips of very warm weather. A quick period of flowering about a week to ten days later than normal in May gave us small berry size along with some shatter (small, seedless “shot” berries resulting from incomplete pollination) which, months later, produces smaller yields but greater intensity in the fruit.

We started … More…

Since the end of harvest, I have done some traveling, to New York for the California Wine Experience and to Mexico as well. As we approach Thanksgiving, I marvel at our weather in Sonoma. It resembles “foliage season” in New England, except it’s a month later. The trees and vines still display beautiful shades of gold and red. The afternoon light is an extended version of the “golden hour” that photographers covet. The days have been crisp yet ideal for outdoor luncheons.

Sonoma is so serene and lovely now that I can hardly believe what a remarkable vintage we have just witnessed, one in which we experienced a little of everything – drought, frost, cold, heat, fire and smoke.

In the long period since our last post, the 2008 wines have been developing in the cellar. We were so lucky that we weren’t forced by the heat around Labor Day to pick … More…

We picked our Swan Pinot Noir selection on Wednesday, and we completed harvesting all of the Pinot Noir on The Donum Estate on Friday. It seemed like good timing because cloud cover moved in followed by a few showers on Saturday morning.

It’s been an odd, fascinating vintage. We have lovely, fully ripe flavors without a hint of greenness, but we still don’t have high Brix numbers (roughly, percentage of sugar content in grape juice) despite considerable hang time. We speculated that perhaps the early September heat somehow damaged the rachises (main stem or framework of the grape cluster) so that they couldn’t conduct carbohydrates efficiently, thus stalling sugar accumulation. But when we cut into them, they were still functioning.

From September 7th until now, we have enjoyed moderate weather with maximum temperatures in the mid-70s to low-80s and the average temperature in the cool high-50s. So even with all this hang … More…

On Monday, I walked our estate vineyards in Carneros with Dr. Phil Freese, our esteemed viticultural consultant, as well as with Kenneth and Nabor. Having successfully weathered the first week of this month and its five days of high 90- to low 100-degree temperatures, we decided to take stock of The Donum Estate.

Last week we brought our (early-ripening) Dijon clones in from Nugent Vineyard in the Russian River Valley and also harvested Dijon fruit from the small vineyard around my house located due south of the city of Sonoma.

Yields at both vineyards were very low -  about one-third of normal. Yes, that’s correct, we are off over 60% in tonnage this year. In the Russian River, we had heat with single … More…

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 – … More…