Each spring I’m asked how the vintage is going so far. This year the questions have come more frequently as we have experienced what seems an endless series of rainstorms. In a nod to working people not involved in agriculture, it feels like every week has included a couple of rainy days, but skies have cleared for the weekends. The past week was no exception. Rain poured down on Thursday, May 27th, but then the sun returned and shone throughout Memorial Day weekend. We expect more fair weather for the rest of the week, so perhaps we have turned the corner.

The recurrent rains remind us of the 1998 vintage when it also rained periodically until June. The impression is that we’ve had a really wet spring, but the fact is that the year is pretty normal to date. While it has rained regularly, it hasn’t always rained very much. What … More…

I’ve continued to take notes and track the 2008 season, which thus far has had as its “defining moments” severe frosts at the end of March and again during the third week of April.

Monday, May 5th:
Today Nabor and I stood in a low bowl on The Donum Estate and took in the vineyard landscape. He observed that while cold air normally flows in from the north, it came instead from the south during our recent frost, flowing like water and reaching a fairly high level in this bowl. Once it hit the hillsides, the cold air had nowhere to go but up.

Normally we see differences between vines up on ridges and those down in the swales. Water drains from the ridgelines quickly, and due to their elevation and exposure, vines … More…

I’ve been keeping the notes that follow about frost damage to indicate our decision-making process amid changing conditions over the period of several weeks.

Thursday, April 10th:
We’ve had a cold spring with some serious frost at the very end of March when temperatures were below freezing for five hours and got as low as 26 degrees F.
Because frost damage can cause unevenness in growth and ripening, it complicates our decision-making. If we’ve lost some crop already, for example, should we thin more crop?

Luckily, Pinot Noir is a later variety and a lot of our vines hadn’t pushed out yet. Our Carneros topography of rolling hills was helpful, because those vines that were out up to two inches were in upper blocks, while the cold air, being heavier, flows into the low swales in the vineyards. Also, our vines are mostly cane pruned, so the secondary buds might be more fruitful and … More…

It is St. Patrick’s Day and, appropriately, there is green everywhere. We had some rain this weekend and a cold front moved in behind it, so frost season is upon us as well, for as long as the next two months.

We have finished pruning and tying the vines, and this is the time of year when we can assess the potential of the vineyards. When the vines are tied, we truly feel that a new vintage has begun because we no longer see unpruned canes as evidence of 2007. Everything is in good order. The canes look very good, soils are nicely saturated and cover crops have prevented erosion.

We have bottled the 2006 Pinots as well as our 2007 Rosé, first wine of that vintage. The 2007 Pinots are almost all through with malolactic fermentations, and barrel orders have gone in for 2008.

Walking through the vineyard, we’ve seen lots of … More…

AMR: After a warm January and early suckering, we aren’t so early any more. The last three weeks of cool weather have really slowed the vines. I estimate that we have another two to three weeks until flowering, and mid-May is normal.

I should explain suckering. It means removing undesirable shoots from the vine, whether they are too small or in the wrong place. This practice takes its name from pulling off “ground suckers” or water sprouts on the rootstock. But because Pinot Noir likes to push out more than one shoot per bud, and sometimes three, we remove additional shoots to make sure the canopy has the potential to ripen the fruit. Pinot Noir requires more leaf surface to ripen a given quantity of fruit than other grape varieties. We need a certain caliber of shoot – it must be larger in diameter than a pencil and grow up … More…