A donut shaped harvest

Yum. With sprinkles….

After the initial onslaught of grapes following a little over a week of really hot weather things have come to a near-halt on the harvest front. Last weeks cool weather and a little splash of rain has really slowed down the ripening cycle. This week, until today, has been quite warm and perfect for ripening, but three days of warmth only goes so far!

The other effect of the cool weather is that the fermentations have slowed down substantially. For instance, the Bedrock Carignane which we picked two weeks ago is just at 12 brix, dropping about one degree of sugar a day, while outside in a stainless steel fermenter. The cool days and night of last week meant that the average temperature for the ferment was about 70 degrees, which is less than ideal. Now, one could possibly see this as a blessing in disguise. The cool temperatures has retained a lot of the bright fruit components of the wine and made for a very long, gentle extraction period (the more alcohol in the must, the more harder tannins are ripped from the seeds). Since this is being blended with Bedrock Zinfandel, Mourvedre, and Syrah– all of which will have quite firm Sonoma Valley “banana-belt” tannin structure, this could be a good way of softening it a bit. The downside is that warmer ferments generally produce wines with richer phenolic structure, aka. denser wines, since the heat helps in extracting more “stuffing” from the wine. Thus, the Carignane is turning out the be “pretty” rather than”powerful.” In an attempt to up the heat and fermentation speed I gave in and innoculated it with an actively fermenting Bayanus strain of yeast. I have no doubt the wine would have finished with the wild yeasts but I am hoping to get a little more activity and heat to bring a faster close to an already long ferment– also with less extraction from the seeds.

In contrast, the Bedrock Cabernet from old Block 7 came in at 1 ton per acre -an outrageously low number reflective of the presence of phyloxxera in these vines and also of it being “Jackson” clone (clone 6) which typically yields less crop than other Cabernet clones. The resulting wine is black, huge, and tannic! Right now it is at 9 brix and 85 degrees in an open-top redwood and is tasting great. In order to off-set the sheer tannic magnitude of the Block 7 fruit, I will be getting a third ton of Cabernet from a slightly higher yielding block planted to clone 337. The block is planted on slightly loamier soils making for slightly larger berries meaning more juice to fewer pips. However, since it is planted to the later ripening 337, has a slightly larger crop yield (about 3 tons/acre), and since it has been cool, I am expecting it to come in 3-4 weeks after the initial Block 7.

The other side of the donut will hopefully be arriving early next week. Syrah from an “unmentionable” vineyard on the border of the Sonoma Mountain AVA will arrive on Tuesday and is tasting excellent.

Kick Ranch Syrah is also getting close. I would be ready to harvest clone 470 today but clone 174 is lagging behind a bit. Since I am hoping to coferment the two in a larger fermenter and get greater warmth in the ferment I am holding out for a bit to bring it in.

Old Lakeville Vineyard is still quite far off. The berries are still firm everywhere, though the Noir clone, and Estrella River, seem to be far advanced of the typically slower ripening 877. On a side-note I had the 2005 Neyers Old Lakeville last night and it was delicious– there was a gorgeous blueberry, vanilla bean component and the wine had great acid/fruit balance. It really made me pumped to be getting fruit from the vineyard, particularly from a slower, cooler year that is looking like 2005 more and more….