It is almost November...

A little picking was done, but the rain showed up just often enough to make it a muddy, wet affair.

At any rate, the second lot of Pinot Gris needed to be pressed and, again, with some volunteer help, the job was done.  My previous enjoyment of our manual press – noted in the post about the first Pinot Gris lot – was pretty much repeated.  No actual injuries occurred this time, thank goodness.  One more round with the press is needed when the Chardonnay comes in-hopefully tomorrow.

The grapes are almost all in and a good thing too, the weather looks to shift to the usual winter rain pattern.  We’ve got until Tuesday-and maybe a few days after that.  Considering it’s nearly November, one can’t complain-we’ve been very, very lucky to have as much dry weather as we have gotten.

The fermentations continue to come along-I’m very excited by the color and flavor development.  Despite the lateness of the harvest, 2011 should offer excellent wines.

Side note:  long standing Naval Academy legend attributes the song California Dreamin to being inspired – if that’s the word – by the dreariness of the Dark Ages after Christmas.  The lead singer of The Mamas & The Papas was a Plebe at the Academy once upon a time, so who knows?  Certainly the lyrics match the feeling of the Yard in the depths of Winter.

How lovely to still be able to enjoy Autumn-if only for a little longer…

On October 27th.  This is unreal.

Another beautiful morning!

After yet another amazing fog & sunrise the day settled into sunshine.  A lot of sunshine.  Still, it is almost November, which means that we may, may have broken 60 degrees today.

The forecasts – certainly not in agreement – suggest that the end to this fortuitous bright and dry period may be coming to an end.  It’s time to get the grapes in.  From what I’ve seen, most of the leaves are rapidly heading towards fall yellow and red – a clear sign that the vines have given their all.  It’s time for the winemaking to take the hand off.

We’ve got a little under half our wine in (but well over half the vineyard picked) – although we expect to change that over the next few days.  If all goes well, everything but one last Pinot block and some Chardonnay will be safely in.  Hopefully everything is picked by…oh, Monday or Tuesday.  Which is good, ’cause it looks like the big rain is comin’ not shortly after…

Cows prefer....Pinot?

So, today, we brought in the first of our 2011 Pinot Gris.  It’s a challenging enough activity-we’re talking manual basket press, here.

All of that is interesting, but first, we had a new…mmmm….item to deal with.  Specifically, cows in the vineyard.  They had apparently wandered over from the neighbors.  Fortunately, despite the horns, they avoided everyone and eventually went back towards their home.

Choco, the winery guard dog – all 20+ pounds of him, was fortunately still on a leash and behind a fence while the bovine interlopers came about.  Perhaps to make up for this, he did stop traffic -again – by darting in front of a mini-van on the county road. Cute, but not very smart.  He got to watch most of the day’s proceedings while staying on his leash.

Old school, baby!

Anyways, back to the wine.  Today, it was time to bring in some Pinot Gris.  The two Pinot Noir fermentors are cold soaking nicely-color excellent, smells good, looking great.  We’ll probably kick off their fermentations soon.  Today-with the help of more enthusiastic friends, we got a little under a ton of Pinot Gris into the tank.  The juice tasted fantastic-great flavors, balanced acidity, exactly what you’re looking for.  I’m hoping that this Gris will be as good as last year.

It should be noted:  we use a small little manual basket press.  Although it’s very romantic, as anyone present on the crush pad today could attest, it is very slow and it likes to attack people.  Oh yes-and I like it a lot and speak lovingly of it.  It didn’t actually manage to hit anyone in the head today, but it did take a bite out of one of my fingers (the acidity from the Gris immediately sterilized the wound…)  On the list of upgrades for future years, a nice little membrane press is high on my list.  I am willing, however, to set aside a few bins of Gris if anyone wants to process them the old school way.  I’ll be happy to ‘supervise’.

No new fruit in tomorrow-next up is probably some more Pinot mid-week.  As noted, the Pinot fermentors will kick off soon.  The inaugural fermentation of 2011 will not belong to them, however – we kicked off a small Rose fermentation today.  Haven’t tried it before, who knows how it will come out…maybe it will just end up in the ‘family’ allotment, on the back deck…

Beth punchdown #1 of....many

We worked through our second load of Pinot Noir today – some clone 114, vines about 10 years old.  This block has been a stalwart of over the last several years for us and I see no reason that it won’t be again.  Color and flavors are outstanding, the acidity is well balanced.  As noted, the only thing that is missing-unlike, well, a lot of the last decade, is some of the sugar levels.  The fruit is very, well, French.

We’re still early in the harvest, so it’s still hard to say how the whole thing will go.  It is very late in October.  A lot of the canopy of our blocks are still green – so in theory, further ripening can happen.  I think it’s likely we’ll see improvement in flavor, color and ripeness.  I’m just not sure how much more sugar we’ll see.

For me, that’s not only okay, it’s great.  Wines with great color, flavor and acidity-and lower, but balanced alcohols?  I’d be happy to get these wines every year.

14 years of college....hard at work!

Today we were joined by some good friends from grad school-all of us putting those years of study to good work by slinging grapes.  When you’re a small little operation like ours, every bit of help is greatly appreciated.

Tomorrow looks like we’ll bring in some Pinot Gris.  We were very, very happy with the 2010 Gris – bright acidity and pretty flavors.  This year – hopefully – will provide similar fruit.

Pinot Noir!

Well, it’s that time of the year again.  Actually, as you may have noticed, it’s later than that time of year – at least harvest wise.

2011 has been a lot like 2010 – late bloom & cool summer.  The results are similar – a harvest that is much later than many have become used to.   We’ve been watching the weather forecasts closely, tracking the ripeness of the fruit and trying to keep the birds and disease pressure at bay.

Today we picked the first block for our Dion Vineyard label – a 115 Pinot Noir clone that is almost always the first to get picked.  The ripeness levels are certainly not what is seen in a hot year like 2006 or 2009 – much more like last year (maybe even more so).  So the sugars are lower and the acidity higher.  I actually prefer these kind of vintages – the wines are likely to be classic & structured – built for greatness and aging.

That being said, this is sure to be a challenging harvest.  Last year we started picking the latest ever in almost 40 years.  That record has lasted exactly one year and, well, a day – until this harvest.  Starting a harvest this late means rain, birds and disease pressure.  Fortunately, we had plenty of practice last year.

As always, I’m excited to start harvest – finally!  I think the 2010 vintage has turned out well – the whites have been fantastic and the Pinot Noir is coming along very nicely in the barrel.  2011 could easily be more of the same.

Our promotion runs through January 1st-so if you already have some Dion, but our concerned you might consume it all before the New Years-don’t worry!  There is still time to ship!

Have a Happy Holidays!  And, yup, I’ll get back to updating the wine adventure throughout the winter (bottling is coming soon!).  Thanks!

115 Pinot Noir...ready for the press

     I can’t believe how quickly this harvest is going.  It’s as if we waited three weeks later than normal and are now trying to get back to a ‘normal’ schedule.  

     Of course, we know better than to put the word normal and Oregon wine into the sentence-and 2010 is a good reminder for us to stay flexible and ready for whatever nature would like to throw at us.  This vintage seems a lot like the ‘old’ days- more rain, lower sugars, higher acidities-but great color & flavor.

Filling the first barrel of the 2010 vintage.

     So the first of our Pinot Noir is in the barrel-we pressed a little earlier than usual to avoid any harsh seed tannins that might be higher than a…well, ‘normal’ year – although I’m very happy with our ripeness levels.  The wine will finish up the bit of primary (sugar) fermentation it has left and get started on the secondary (malo-lactic) fermentation shortly.  The overall yields aren’t too bad-I didn’t do too hard a press (again to avoid any unripe flavors)-but I’m happy with the quantities we’re getting. 

     We’ve still got more fermentations in progress-but all are coming along very nicely.  One thing about low yields and lower sugar levels-it makes life easier for the yeast.  Might be something to remember for future vintages.

Just a little Pinot ferment...

     This just may go down as the fastest (and latest) harvest ever.  The grapes are pretty much in-only about a week for total pick time.  Yikes, that’s fast.

     Not to be out-done, the wines are already starting up fermentation.  We went with a short cold soak-the colors are already excellent, but the extended hang time makes it likely that something unwanted might start it’s own little fermentation-not what we would like to see.  So down the road we go!

Rain coming in from the west.

Dad inspects a tote of Pinot Noir

     Yesterday was a great day of harvest-fantastic weather, plenty of pickers, no hitch deliveries, quick processing and great, great fruit.  If every day of harvest was like this,  we’d want to have harvest all year round!

     The crop levels are definetly down this year-I suspect the crop was small to begin with and those birds are definetly taking their fair share.  The net result is that the picking is going quickly-and a good thing too, with another weekend of bad weather on the way.  Fortunately, we’ll have a lot of the crop in by then-well, at least we hope so!  It’s two days to the weekend and anything can happen during a harvest.

Pinot out of the destemmer and into the fermenter

I’m very excited about the fruit we brough in for ourselves-about 4 tons of Pinot Noir and a little under a ton of Pinot Gris.  The Pinot Noir was from clones 115 and 114 for you clone geeks out there (and really who isn’t?).  There are even some different rootstocks-but now we’ve fallen waaaay down the grape geek well. 

     The grapes looked really good-a bit of mildew & botrytis, but no where near as much as I feared.  The first measurements looked good: brix from 21-23 (about 2 brix lower than the previous harvest), the acidities were higher than what we’ve seen in the past, but look to be still within the range we want.  I’ve been wanting to bring a bit more acidity into our wines and it looks like this vintage will naturally lead us there. 

     The Pinot Noir is now enjoying a bit of a cold soak-we’ll kick the ferment off in a few days.  The Pinot Gris will settle a bit and then start a nice cool ferment in a day or two.  We have a few more lot’s for ourselves to bring in-and a lot of grapes for other wineries to deliver-and hopefully we’ll get most of it done in the next few days!

     At any rate, we’ve started picking-and a good thing too.  Although this week is projected to have (*mostly*) good weather, it looks like the rain will return this weekend.  It is the second half of October after all-the days are getting short and it is cold.  Winter isn’t that far away and I’m far more used to picking when it feels like the end of summer (say…September!) rather than the beginning of winter.   

     Like all vintages, 2010 promises to be unique.  It’s far too early to say what these wines will be-but, based on our first day of picking, we can start to guess some things.  First off, it looks like the crop may be quite small-smaller than expected, perhaps.   When you combine that with low ripeness, botrytis and bird damage-will will mean fruit not picked or discarded from the sort table-and you could be looking at a small quantity of 2010′s out there. 

     I very excited about those grapes that pass these twin hurdles-the combination of hang time-concentration and  acidity could make for really age worthy wines.  If you’re the kind of drinker who likes their Pinots with big and with high alcohol (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), this will probably not be your vintage.  Sorry!  If you like acidity & structure-well, stand by.  It may take awhile, but 2010 just may be your favorite vintage.

     It may be bad luck to discuss a vintage before it’s all picked, much less anywhere near the bottle so I’ll stop my speculation.  Tomorrow it’ll be back to picking-and given the weather-hopefully as fast as we reasonably can!