A California Winery Blog

The weather is back to normal. The nights, however, are very cool and the grapes picked at night arrive at the winery below 50F.

Today we picked a new block of Pinot Noir, one that we planted three years ago. And, although young vines generally produce less fruit, this has been our most prolific Pinot Noir block this year. The reason, as it was explained to me by winemaker Bruce McGuire, is that young vines bud later and this block by budding later avoided the late February frost which damaged the older blocks.

This is almost the end of our Pinot Noir with one more day remaining, but it is not the end of harvest. We are still picking Chardonnay and Reisling with Grenache and Syrah yet to come. The last two are not quite ready. The Syrah tastes very good, but as Bruce points out, the seeds are still green and it will get better.