Oh, It's ON Now!
When they picked Bob Hunter's Pinot Noir for Gloria Ferrer on August 1st this year it marked the earliest start to the grape harvest in memory (even in my sieve-like recall). It freaked me out a little, since at the time I had not a blush of color in our Estate Pinot Noir.Thank goodness things change, and change they have. We finally had a prolonged heat spell – the last two weeks saw daytime highs around 100°F and nighttimes in the mid-60's – something that we have missed all Summer. This really pushed our vineyard along. Now we are in our second day of a cool spell, with a return of the marine layer, days in the high 70's and nights around 50°F. This morning at dawn our back deck was wet with drizzle.
This past Saturday (9/6) I pulled my first sample from our clone 115 and 667 Pinot, and got a 22.8° Brix. My normal expectation is that the sugar will rise about a Brix a week, meaning I will be pulling grapes somewhere around 9/20.
Things don't always go according to my expectation. In prior harvests I have seen that the Dijon clones of Pinot have a tendency for the sugar to shoot up as harvest approaches. This year I have had the crews through the Pinot three times to pull excess leaf area, in hopes of moderating the rate of sugar accumulation in the fruit.
My winery co-habitants have been bringing in fruit for a week. I'm grateful that our Estate is behind – I have a bottling scheduled for 9/17 (what an idiot!). I've been travelling and getting ready for the bottling, and away from this blog for over six weeks. Maybe I will have a few more notes to make now that I am closer to home for the next few months.
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