The 2006 vintage was our second year of extended hang time. The unusual heat spike in July produced some kind of stress or damage to the canopy or vine that we didn’t recognize at the time. A cool August and September slowed ripening considerably.

How can flavors just go away? It’s difficult to evaluate because it’s so objective – high acids can hide flavors. At 20 or 21 Brix, it’s not critical; we know the flavors will develop again.

Early in the year, we pull off shoots to get a more uniform canopy so we have to manipulate less later in the season. In doing so, we lose yields that we can’t make up. Then this year, we had a tight set that was hard to understand.

Big seeds make big berries. Instead of weighing a normal 1.0 gram, the berries averaged from 1.2 to 1.3 grams. Our cluster counts were not … More…

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…

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…