Yesterday I was out early, and the rising sun was just a small blood-red disk in a tan sky, the result of smoke and ash from more than 800 fires burning in California. The mountains around us are barely discernible in this haze, which resembles severe smog, and the sunlight has a brassy quality.

It’s cool now, but a week ago we had four days of 100-degree temperatures. That’s our third heat spike in what has been a fairly cool, windy and very dry season to date. We also had spikes in mid-May and early June, and this succession of heat events reminds me of the 2003 and 2004 vintages.

That said, the vineyards are showing nicely. We use two tools to monitor our water situation and evaluate the effectiveness of irrigations. The neutron probe tells us the levels of moisture stored in the soil. The pressure bomb, which we’ve had as … More…

Warm weather is upon us and is expected through the weekend and into next week. The mercury hit 96 degrees in Sonoma yesterday, but temperatures should be more moderate from today on. Walking the vineyards this week, I noticed some shatter – the failure of berries to develop due to incomplete pollination during flowering.

Shatter can be the result of too much heat or wind or moisture during bloom that prevents the setting of fruit. Timing is everything, as different sites, clones or selections and varieties develop at different rates. We expected some shatter with the onset of heat last month around bloom time as all the pent-up energy stored in the vines during the cool weather was unleashed in a growth spurt. We see elongated rachises (grape cluster axes) as a result of that spurt.

A little shatter is good for quality because it opens up the cluster, allowing berries to … More…

We keep checking our refractometers (devices that measure sugar content by refraction of light) and comparing results, because nothing seems to be happening. But they all read the same.

The flavors are there now, in most cases. The seeds and skins are mature. All the numbers are good except the sugars are low. The canopies are nearing the end of their cycle, so we will have to pick soon.

This has been a dry year, so there should be less chance of mildew or botrytis mold. Yet I have seen more mildew than last year. This puzzles me, and I’m sure the guys from the universities are puzzled, too.

I’m noticing symptoms of leaf roll virus (margins of the leaf blade roll downward; areas between major veins turn red) quite a … More…

After a week of heat in the mid- to high-90s in Carneros, and 100-plus temperatures in Sonoma, I find it interesting that we haven’t picked very much, and we will probably wait until the week after next to harvest most of our crop.

Others have had to pick, but not us. Our sugars were at 21 to 22 degrees Brix (approximate percentage of sugar) when the heat came and now we’re at about 23. We saw a little bit of dehydration, but on the whole there weren’t huge shifts, the canopies are healthy and the fruit is beautiful. We walked our Russian River vineyard on Tuesday, and it looks wonderful, too. Our two Dijon Pinot Noir selections are holding nicely in the high 23 Brix range.

Nabor commented that when the fruit is at 21 to 22, it’s so healthy and intact that it can withstand heat, perhaps because the … 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…