Just a quick post to let you all know that we'll be pouring our 2008 Russian River Pinot Noir at the Crushbarrel Wine Market this Saturday, October 30th, from 12pm to 5pm at Fort Mason. These events ae always pretty fun, and you can buy wines on the spot after you taste -- time to get a jump on holiday shopping?!
Hope to see you there!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
2010 Harvest Update!
The last few weeks has been unbelievably hectic. What was a cool, wet season turned real hot real fast at the end of September, everything ripened at once; bins and trucks and crushspace and cool heads were at a premium!
We picked Devoto on Monday 10/4. I was up there with Dean on 10/1, and we hoped the fruit would hold out over the weekend!
The fruit was actually in great shape, mainly due to some proactive farming by Stan (some mild fungicide earlier in the month after the rains, some irrigation before the end-of-the-month heat). Here's Stan with every farmer's trusty tool. I took two tons this year and hope to get more next year.
Here's one of the ferment bins with a punchdown tool sitting on the cap. This year I sorted out about 25% of my tonnage (probably a little overly aggressive) and effected a light crush through the destemmer. Really like the fruit this year, lots of backbone, earthy-cola flavors. Many thanks to Bill Welch (second harvest as a Wait Cellars fruit rat!), Damon Harris, and Ananda and Micki from AGP for helping drive trucks, move fruit, sort, pick jacks, and keep it together during a chaotic day!
Here's a shot of Dean (with some help) dumping one of the bins into the bladder press, the press fractions were tasting all the way up past 1 bar, some nice nutty flavors from the seeds, tannins getting leathery toward the hardest press but still soft, not too bitter.
We picked Devoto on Monday 10/4. I was up there with Dean on 10/1, and we hoped the fruit would hold out over the weekend!
The fruit was actually in great shape, mainly due to some proactive farming by Stan (some mild fungicide earlier in the month after the rains, some irrigation before the end-of-the-month heat). Here's Stan with every farmer's trusty tool. I took two tons this year and hope to get more next year.
Here's one of the ferment bins with a punchdown tool sitting on the cap. This year I sorted out about 25% of my tonnage (probably a little overly aggressive) and effected a light crush through the destemmer. Really like the fruit this year, lots of backbone, earthy-cola flavors. Many thanks to Bill Welch (second harvest as a Wait Cellars fruit rat!), Damon Harris, and Ananda and Micki from AGP for helping drive trucks, move fruit, sort, pick jacks, and keep it together during a chaotic day!
Here's a shot of Dean (with some help) dumping one of the bins into the bladder press, the press fractions were tasting all the way up past 1 bar, some nice nutty flavors from the seeds, tannins getting leathery toward the hardest press but still soft, not too bitter.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Amber crush
Some shots of the sort at Amber on Thursday -- a beautiful warm day made a bit stressful due to the crush of everything ripening at once (and everyone needing equipment at once).
Though, here's my Westy resting, appearing very unstressed.
The 115 and Pommard clones were certainly interesting this year with the cool summer and late heat; berries smaller, a bit haggard, some shrivel and minor amounts of rot -- but the flavors were auspicious, nice mature brown, nutty notes from the seeds and stems too.
Yours truly forking some fruit (this is the 115) onto the sorting belt.
Crushing outside on a warm day, dry-ice pellets in the must are good practice to keep spoilage organisms at bay.
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