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• 2008

September

We began harvest in the Napa Valley on September 7th.

We experienced a flash of extreme heat on Saturday August 30th. Unusually, St. Helena was the hotspot of Napa and Sonoma County at 106. It was hotter in Napa than in Sacramento. It cooled down a bit early in the week and then heated up moderately to 100 degrees on Wednesday and Thursday. Next week should be in the mid-eighties to low nineties with little morning fog.

The heat brought on a jump in maturity and has taken us right to the brink with the Bordeaux red varieties. We will begin crushing at Twomey Calistoga on Monday with Merlot from our Soda Canyon Ranch and will start in the Silver Oak Oakville winery by midweek with Merlot and some of the early Cabernet Sauvignon ranches from St. Helena. We may start crushing in Geyserville by late in the week. A few of the east Cloverdale hillside vineyards are getting close.

They call it Labor Day because we get to crush grapes. I always say crush is like childbirth. I feel those contractions getting closer together.

There was very little fog this week. The daily high temperatures steadily increased with each day. The week began with temperatures in the low to mid eighties and ended with 100 to 102 temperatures on Friday. The forecast calls for a cool weekend and mild temperatures through next week.

Cloverdale was hotter than St. Helena, so natural order must be returning. The vineyards (and vineyardists) are responding well to this weather pattern and we are seeing slow ripening and a good range of maturities so that we can stage our harvest over a few weeks. We vastly prefer this over a compressed harvest.

In Geyserville, we started crush on Tuesday with some hillside fruit from east Cloverdale and continued whittling away at that ranch throughout the week. Next week will see a few more ranches come in, but in general Alexander Valley is about a week behind Napa.

We began crush in Oakville with some Cabernet Sauvignon from young vines in St. Helena and continued with a few Cabernet Sauvignon blocks from the rocky slopes on the north side of our Soda Canyon Ranch.

On this day of mourning, it is good to remember that the cycles of nature continue and renewal occurs even amidst our losses. Let’s raise our glass tonight to remember those that perished. We’ll do our best to create something worthy of filling those glasses.

What an interesting week this has been. Sunday was overcast and drizzly and there was lightning and thunder throughout the area. A car was struck by lightning in San Francisco and caught fire! Monday was overcast and we had a little drizzle, but by late afternoon the sky was clearing and it warmed to close to eighty in most parts of the north bay region. Rainfall amounts were less than a tenth of an inch in most places although one of our Pinot growers in Annapolis received 4 tenths of an inch. Temperatures steadily warmed the rest of the week, until we reached highs around 100 on Friday. It is forecasted to cool a little over the weekend and then get really hot for the beginning of next week and then cool slightly by mid-week.

only result of the weekend drizzle was that the dust was washed off the leaves and the grapes were allowed to rehydrate after the moderate heat of the last Thursday and Friday. It also meant we got to regroup for a few days because after the berries are wet and absorb water, it takes a minimum of 48 hours for them to shed the water and get back into equilibrium.

resumed picking on Thursday in Napa County with Cabernet from St Helena and then continued with Cabernet and Merlot from our Soda Canyon Ranch. Next week we expect to bring in more Cabernet from St. Helena and Atlas Peak.

In Geyserville, we continued with hillside fruit from east of Cloverdale and Geyserville. We will begin picking our Miraval Ranch on Monday and will continue with it all week as well as two of the other growers in the central part of Alexander Valley.

It was supposed to get really hot this week – like 105 for 3 days. Fortunately that didn’t happen, but it got plenty hot – high nineties in most places for three days and 105 and 106 in Calistoga and Cloverdale respectively on Tuesday. By Thursday the fog was in for a couple of days but it is forecasted to get hot again on Saturday and Sunday and then cool down quite a bit on Monday and Tuesday of next week. The mountain vineyards on the top of Atlas Peak were crazy this week: it was 90 degrees by 8:30 in the morning while the valley floor was in the low sixties. The cool nights were refreshing and saved the grapes from raisining and shrivel.

Maturities jumped up with the warm weather and we not only saw sugars go up and acids drop, but skins soften and concentration increase.

We had a big week in Napa County with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc from our Soda Canyon Ranch, and mountain fruit from Atlas Peak, Soda Canyon and Pritchard Hill. We brought in 2 lots of Petit Verdot. This typically late variety came in ahead of Merlot and Cabernet Franc: a sign of an unusual and unique vintage. Next week we expect to bring in the rest of the Merlot, more mountain Cabernet and the Soda Canyon Cabernet Franc.

In Geyserville, we finished up with the hillside fruit from east of Cloverdale and picked all week at our Miraval Ranch. We have been focusing on this ranch for the past few years and the yields and quality are extraordinary this year – we are very excited about the young wines. We also brought in fruit from the west side of the Russian River in Alexander Valley – an extremely beautiful part of the appellation. Next week we will finish Miraval and move up to Red Tail. We will also continue pressing the early tanks and be ready to receive the last wave of ripe Cabernet.

I thought this week was going to be intense and I was right. At this point the spirit in the cellars is – “Bring it on!!”

What a week. It went from highs over 100 on Sunday to heavy clouds on Monday, highs in the low 70’s on Tuesday and then gradual warming. The vines seemed to like it, breathing a sigh of relief and continuing to ripen fruit. The softening of the berries, smoothing of tannins and development of flavors progressed well even if sugars leveled off or dropped. I continue to be impressed with the sophistication of the growers and their coordination with us to manage their irrigations so that we can harvest the fruit at ideal maturity.

We had another big week in Napa County with Cabernet Sauvignon from our Jump Rock Ranch, the remainder of the mountain fruit from Atlas Peak, the last of the Merlot from our Soda Canyon Ranch and Cabernet from Mt Veeder, Rutherford and St Helena. We also did a great deal of pressing. The tank room is bursting at the seams, but if we can consolidate a few of the pressed lots, we should have enough room the get close to completion next week. We have Rutherford and south Napa Cabernet to bring in.

In Geyserville, we had a huge week. We crushed 158 tons on Monday alone! We mostly focused on our Red Tail Ranch on Chalk Hill Road, but also brought in fruit from along Highway 128, Geysers Road and East Cloverdale. Our tank room is pretty full in Geyserville as well and we pressed many tanks and consolidated lots to make room for the next wave of picking. We will complete our Red Tail Ranch next week and will be close to completion by week’s end.

Another week of intense activity, but it feels like we have made it through the most demanding part of crush and should have smooth sailing from here.