Notes From The Winemaker

Spring Is Here

This picture pretty much says it all. The rains have stopped for the time being, and we have had a week of sunny weather in the 70's and 80's. A couple of days have even started out with the summer pattern of a deep marine layer in the morning. You can see in the photo that our Estate Syrah is already out several leaves. Even the late-budding Mourvedre is out by 50%. The soil is looking pretty dry on top, but 6"-8" down it is still very moist.

We made our first disease prevention spray yesterday, and I have a standing request to get crews in the vineyard ASAP to finish adjusting the pruning, sucker the crowns and trunks, and take shovels to any rootstock suckers popping out below the graft union. With the late season and the soil being so wet we probably won't start irrigating the lower blocks until July -- barring any more rain. The soil is so shallow on the upper blocks that we already need to be keeping an eye on the vines for excess stress.

Since bottling the week of the 10th and racking all the 2005 Rhone varietals earlier this week my efforts have been pretty scattered: doing accounting stuff (and hoping to hire a bookeeper soon), working on licensing and labeling issues, and shipping wines. A number of recent visitors to the Salon have joined the Wine Club just to get the opportunity to purchase some of our unfiltered 2005 Grenache Rosé in June or July. I hope I have enough to go around. If not you can be sure I will make more rosé in 2006, and include some Mourvedre, Counoise and Syrah with the Grenache.

posted 4/30/2006 06:31:00 PM