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 … More…

A friend invited me to have a beer with him after work the other day at a place that offers “designer” beers, and I ordered one that I didn’t know. The color was a beautiful coppery red and I raised it to my lips with the anticipation of refreshment. But something was a little off. It was too sweet. The beer had tons more character than an everyday American lite, … 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 … More…

It’s been raining off and on this week. We only have a day or two of pruning left, but we’re not working. The cover crops are so high and wet in the rows that we quickly get soaked to the waist, and that’s miserable.The rainfall has been … More…

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’ve received a wonderful valentine – over a week of beautiful weather, with highs reaching 70 and lows in the 30s.

Heavy rains have brought us close to 20 inches for the season, very near normal, which is slightly less than 22 through this … More…

AMR: We are excited about how we “build” tannins in our grapes and wines. Tannins contribute to the texture, flavors and structure of wine. A few days ago we looked at the numerical results of our tannin trials, and then we tasted our 2007 Pinot Noirs made from … More…

As we sit here talking at Anne’s, the creek is rising and water is beginning to flow across the road that leads to her home. We need the rain and we have it, about 2.7 inches in less than 24 hours. Downtown Napa looks … More…

A wine writer friend asked us to comment on Dijon Pinot Noir clones (group of early-ripening French clones named for Burgundian city) the other day, and Kenneth and I thought that would be a good subject for a post. We have the … More…

There’s something of a lull between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Because we are an agricultural enterprise, we fit right into the ancient seasonal pattern of harvest and celebration. It’s our time to rest, regain our energy, get caught up and then gear up for the new season. … More…

One of my goals as a winemaker after each crush is to get the winery buttoned up before Thanksgiving. The wines should be fully topped in barrel and prepped to go through malolactic fermentation (secondary bacterial fermentation converting malic acid, found in apples, to the softer lactic acid, … More…

We had a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend, and a lot to give thanks for. We’ve had only a few days of showers post-harvest, just enough to turn the hills and cover crops in the vineyards a vibrant green in contrast to the few remaining yellow, brown and rust-colored leaves on the … More…

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 … More…

This is a big week for us, the big payoff for the year. We’ve had great weather and the fruit is beautiful.

The Calera Pinot Noir selection did come around in flavor intensity, and it was worth the wait. It came off yesterday, with sugar … More…

We can let the fruit hang as long as we want. The window to pick is a week or more long. It’s almost silly – we can do whatever we want without fear. With great flavors and everything truly ripe, I’m taking advantage. I’m being a little more … 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 … More…

We’re still waiting. Our Calera Pinot Noir clone has ripe skins, the acids are starting to drop and the sugars haven’t moved much, so we’re waiting for a “pop” in the fruit, a flavor shift. Will it still come?

It doesn’t always happen. We may not … More…

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 … More…

Kenneth, Nabor and I walked our Donum and Ferguson Block vineyards today with Dr. Phil Freese, our viticultural consultant. It was cool and overcast until noon. Phil remarked that while it’s been a mild summer, there has been virtually no fog. Cool evenings have kept acid levels up.

Even with clouds … 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 … More…

This vintage is pretty amazing. We’ve had no pressures like rot. The canopies are open and healthy. Shoot sizes are in balance. The crop level is slightly low and there is a nice display of fruit.

We have had ideal weather, with temperatures from the high 70s to low 90s, mild … More…

We have been asked more “green” questions in recent months – do you grow your grapes sustainably, organically or biodynamically? And the follow-up question may well be, “What does sustainable mean, anyway?”

My simplest answers are “we farm our land as stewards so that one day our children may … More…

We had a few days that exceeded the 100-degree mark around the Fourth of July, but other than that, this summer has been consistently cool as we approach 50% veraison (softening, coloring of berries). The vines look beautiful and we’re just cruising along at this point.

Someone asked me a good question the other day – how do we determine the size and shape of vineyard blocks?

The short answer … More…

I have time for a quick update on where we are so far this year. The weather around bloom time was a little erratic – very warm in early May, then cool, then warm again. Those conditions did affect fruit set, and so all the blocks have some … More…

KJ: Someone asked at a tasting recently about the benefits of spontaneous or native yeast fermentation. I said that they create little “flaws” in the wine. They are … 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 … More…

KJ: I didn’t see the quality coming with the 2006 vintage. It was a really late vintage, almost a month, and everything went slowly. I think the July heat may have lowered the nutrient content in the must (unfermented or fermenting crushed grapes). The malolactic fermentations (conversion of stronger malic acid, found in apples, to weaker lactic acid, found in milk) went slowly as well. It was like a … More…

Weather really determines a vintage. Each year we are fortunate to work with the same team on the same soil and plant material, although the vines are a year more mature. But the amount and timing of rainfall and the temperature really determine what we do, because our vineyard practices … More…

After my last posting, I was asked what sites and soils do I prefer for Pinot Noir. The Ferguson 4A01 and the Donum 490 blocks are grand cru sites for us. While 490 has pretty dense, heavy, water-retaining clay that is almost dry farmed, 4A01 is on lighter, more gravelly … More…

Like Kenneth, I am wary of absolutes. We like to simplify and uncomplicate a system like the vineyard so people can more easily understand it. But then we forget it has been simplified, and people assume it’s simple. The best we can do is try to identify some principals behind … More…

We hear a lot about terroir these days. In my humble view, the vineyard site produces terroir, which is the unique quality of that specific place. Terroir shows itself in wine, certainly in Pinot Noir, but you can over-ride it.

You can create wines from one place that seem like they … More…

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 … More…

I think the 2006 vintage is unique among at least the last 20 years in California. It was generally cool, very spread out and sporadic, producing wines in a style somewhat similar to 2004.

After a heat wave in July, flavors started to show in the high ‘teens of degrees Brix (scale of sugar content). Then, rather mysteriously, the flavors flat-lined and almost disappeared. The vintage became a game of … More…

I’m long overdue for a blog posting. Normally we pick in a week to ten days and our harvest is over. This vintage will be drawn out for over a month, a long time for a small Pinot Noir specialist. The biggest topic has been botrytis, but there’s a lot of misinformation about it. The botrytis was already there – it was not caused by the rain in early October. … More…

I’m making my first posting to this blog on the run. It’s been a rollercoaster harvest, frustrating because everything is so spread out due to the cool weather. The second half of September was mild, and the first week of October cold, cloudy and misty with half … 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 … 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 … 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 … More…

We are on the brink of September, and my very first blog entry concerns an important “day in the life” of a Pinot producer. At Joe Nugent’s fairly youthful vineyard (planted in 1997) in the Russian River Valley, we have a large crop, in contrast to the … More…