Pinot Gris, Sauv Blanc, Gewurz All In
Harvest update! The 2009 vintage is well underway despite an agonizingly slow/late start. We’re now ramping up into some of our larger volume varietals and are trying to keep the influx of fruit into the winery at a steady, manageable pace.
We have picked all of our Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, and Gewurztraminer, and are making substantial headway into the mountain of Chardonnay and Merlot. The Pinot Gris, it must be said, is looking very good. Much of it is through primary ferment and we’re just starting to get a look at what it will be like given time to settle and refocus itself. We’ve done the majority in stainless steel for our fresher style Grigio, but have snuck some for barrel ferments for a possible Reserve Gris.
The Sauvignon Blanc off the Creekside Estate Vineyard is definitely leaning towards a crisp version of the variety, but it shows astounding vibrancy and good fruit concentration. It’s currently very early in its fermentation (in Fred), and so it’s hard to get a handle on exactly where it will land, but we’re happy with it thus far. We’re going do some experimentation with barrel ferment again this year, running off a couple of barrels from the main tank (Fred) at different stages of ferment, to see how they come out the other side in terms of ferment kinetics and oak influence. Would like to do 15 degrees Brix, 10 degrees Brix, 5 degrees Brix and zero. We’ll see!
As far as the Gewurztraminer goes (known affectionately around here as “goo”), we did some extended skin contact in the press on a small batch and have (we think) nailed it. The mouthfeel, the aromatics, the everything…it just screams ‘gew’, even at this early stage of ferment, when aromatics are often muddled and not as apparent. Go gew!
With a few frost scares over the last couple weeks, dropping temperatures, and an ever-shifting weather forecast that seems to like to torment us by predicting biblical deluges one moment, and partially cloudy skies the next, the late-ripening reds are in for a bit of a tough haul. Thankfully, our vineyards were leaf-pulling and aggressively thinned very early in the season and the sugar levels are actually already within range, we’re just patiently waiting for the overall maturity of the fruit to catch up with the Brix.
If we can keep the birds off the vineyards we’ll be doing well. Massive swarms of hungry flying beasties can be seen wheeling over most of the peninsula, settling in trees and on hydro lines like something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.
Bird bangers and cap guns, both of which just make a lot of noise (no birds were harmed in the filming of this harvest), have been somewhat effective but as food sources get more and more scarce and winter approaches, the flocks get increasingly more daring. It’s not uncommon to see one of our winemakers trotting noisily through the cabernet sauvignon on their lunch break, munching on a sandwich and shooing the winged raiders to the best of their ability.