The beauty of the post-harvest period is that the tempo changes. There’s a feeling that “we made it.” The horses are back in the stable. There is time to reflect on the past season and assess it. What went well? What did not? Was it a timing issue?

But while this is a period when we can relax, it’s also a time of planning and preparation. We want to put the vineyard to sleep in a good way before the rainy weather begins. Since we never know what’s coming for sure, we have to prepare for heavy rains.

We’ve been flagging vines, marking those on which we observed slight, moderate or heavy leaf roll virus (which causes leaves to turn red and curl under). We question what we are seeing. Is it a seasonal phenomenon because of a dry year? Did the long 2006 season cause stress so that we now see red leaves all over? Or is it mealy bugs spreading the virus?

By marking the vines while we can still observe the leaves, we will be able to check their status next year and compare. This is a new challenge for us, and this information will be helpful. The next question is, can we farm to influence this expression of virus? If we thin our crop a little more severely, what difference will it make?

We also think about cover crops and erosion control, and about incorporating gypsum (hydrated calcium sulfate) into the soil. We do petiole (stalk that joins a leaf to a shoot) analyses for nutrient deficiencies at bloom (flowering) and veraison (when berries soften and change color).

Every three to five years, we take soil samples just as we do before planting a vineyard. Carneros soils are often acidic, so we might want to raise the pH (lower the acidity) slightly for better balance by adding gypsum, which also can improve the calcium/magnesium ratio (3:1 is optimal) for better nutrient availability. Gypsum is a good soil conditioner as well and can make heavy clay soils more permeable, allowing water to penetrate and thereby also creating better uptake of nutrients.

This is the time we do our housecleaning, so to speak, like making trellis repairs, for we never know if rain and mud will allow us to get into the vineyard in the spring. Our vineyard crew is not seasonal. They are full-time, and their families live here, so they have work to do year-round as a part of our sustainable approach to farming.

I walked through Ferguson Block this morning, through some rows where we had pulled out some older vines. The mornings are chilly now, even though the days are still quite warm. Where the Dijon Pinot Noir clones were picked early, all the leaves are gone now. October is definitely ending.

I thought back to 2004 when we took in all of our Pinot Noir in less than a week. This year we picked Pinot for a whole month. For the past three years, we have experienced hang time. This year was the real deal. We didn’t just let the fruit hang. The sugars wouldn’t move, yet there was an evolution of tannins and skin ripening without that sugar development. And it’s a good thing because of the big spread we had in flowering.

Bloom began in early May, about a third of the crop, then hit a stand-still and finally finished in late May. This even happened on the same vine and in the same cluster, so you really couldn’t thin for it. So the moderate weather and long hang time gave those later-developing berries a chance to catch up without making the riper berries into raisins.

It’s too early to call this vintage, but Nabor and I tasted the wines about ten days ago and they seemed wonderful. The great thing about not being rushed in the vineyard is that we also weren’t pushed in the winery – there was time and space to make and execute very subtle winemaking decisions. Even the lower yields had a positive side, also allowing more space and more time so that Kenneth could make beautiful, expressive wines. Happy Halloween!

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