East of Eden– Brosseau Vineyard

Well, the first grapes of the 2009 harvest are in the winery, have been pressed, settled, and put down to barrel for fermentation.  I could not be happier with the technical numbers, and more importantly I am pleased with the flavors.  22.4 brix, 5.8 g/l TA, 3.05 pH.

Here is a copy of an email I sent out to friends and family following the magical pick at Brosseau…

Thought y’all might enjoy some pretty pictures of Brosseau Vineyard and its surroundings.  For the wine geeks, I say this– 30 year old, own-rooted, original Wente clone Chardonnay, grown on limestone (some of the only soil in the state the matches Burgundy) and decomposed granite.  For the rest of you, the vineyard lies right under the Pinnacles National Park at 1600-1800 feet overlooking Soledad in the Monterey Valley.  The setting for John Steinbeck’s “Red Pony” was a ranch owned by his uncle about 2 miles as the bird flies in the same Gabilan Range.

As the fine writer wrote later in East of Eden “I remember that the Gabilan Mountains to the east of the valley were light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation, so that you wanted to climb into their warm foothills almost as you want to climb into the lap of a beloved mother. There were beckoning mountains with a brown grass love.”

It was of this, and many other excitedly buzzed thoughts, that I reflected on when picking up the first fruit of the harvest for Bedrock Wine Co.. last night.  The birth of a new vintage year is upon us– fecund with thoughts of vinous midwifery and what-not– of the final realization of what has been a blessed growing season.

Mostly though, as the 20 foot bobtail loaded with four, one thousand pound bins of Chardonnay, sweetened to 22.2 brix (low!) and full of flavor, weaved its way down the lonely, single tract road leading from the vineyard high in the mountains at weaning hours of the  dawn, I thought that I, distinctly, might be the luckiest person in the world.

Harvest is here! Harvest is here! And here is to many more!

Got to love a good town-cryer….

Below, a photo of Brosseau Vineyard as sun surrendered last night looking south-east at the Pinnacles, and another taken this morning at dawn looking northwest over Monterey Valley towards the Santa Lucias.