Kenneth and I walked the vineyards yesterday and the sugars are slowly moving upward. There are no green tannins left and the berries seem poised to undergo a shift to full maturity. There’s a moment when the berries jump from being ever so slightly bland to just popping with flavors.

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.

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