Harvest is almost upon us again, an exciting and busy time. Our Winemaker, Geoff Gorsuch, spends his mornings walking the vine rows to check on grape maturity in our various vineyard sites. The crop is looking quite good. The yields are down considerably from last year and the grapes are small--both good indicators for flavor intensity. It looks like we're about a week to 10 days behind what's considered "normal". Typically, we start picking early-ripening varieties, such as Sauvignon Blanc, around Labor Day. The Chardonnay is often ready about the middle of September, and we harvest the reds well into October. Cabernet Sauvignon is usually the last to ripen, but it all depends upon the weather.

Like most of the country, we had a severe heat wave here in July. It's not uncommon for us to see a few days of 100° temperatures, but a prolonged heat wave, such as the one we experienced, is quite unusual. When it gets that hot, just like people, the vines go into the survival mode. They store water in the trunk and roots to keep cool, and stop photosynthesizing. Geoff irrigated the vines a few days into the heat wave to help them along. You can see a few sunburned leaves, and Geoff did some crop thinning after the fact to balance the healthy leafy growth to the crop level. Aside from that, the greatest impact is that the heat put us a little more behind in ripening, assuring a later-than-normal harvest.

We saw a few grapes beginning to turn from green to purple (we call it veraison) in our Cabernet around August 1. It indicates that the vine's energy is shifting from vegetative growth into fruit ripening. As the berries begin to color up and soften, the sugar rises, the acid decreases and the grapes reach their full (rather small) size. Veraison also indicates that the grapes had reached around 10-12% sugar, and Geoff knew it wouldn't be long before it was time for him to begin gathering samples to check the sugar, acid and pH. Our 9.5 acre site is divided into 12 sections according to differences in variety, clone of the variety, rootstock hybrid and spacing. Each section is its own entity and must be sampled separately. He walks the section and picks a representative sample of grapes, tosses them in a zip-lock bag and analyzes the juice back at the winery.

Weeks after veraison, when the grapes reach about 20% sugar, it's time to begin tasting for flavor maturity. Each section will be picked at somewhere between about 22% and 26% sugar, and flavor development will determine Geoff's decision. Seed maturity is important too, so he bites into the seeds to see if they're crunchy and mature or soft, green and tannic. It's important to continue monitoring the acid and pH for the sake of balance and stability. Tasting and analysis become more and more frequent as the section gets closer to maturity.

When conditions are ideal, the sugar, acid and pH are all in line with the flavor maturity, a mark of a good vintage. The challenge comes when either heat, cold or rain throw off the balance and make his decision more difficult.

This year we expect to kick off the harvest with some Sauvignon Blanc the week of September 10, and who knows what will happen from there? Many in the valley are predicting a "compressed" harvest, which can mean some very hectic days in the cellar. Look for our Harvest Calendar, which will be posted in the next few weeks, and provides a play-by-play of our progress with "crush".

We've been lucky so far. Let's hope that Mother Nature continues to smile on us and we have a great 2006 vintage! Click here for the report from July 1 or May 1 or monitor our progress with harvest by clicking here for the Harvest Calendar.