Tablas Creek Vineyard Blog

A first look at the surprisingly lush 2008 whites

This afternoon, we got together to taste our first preliminary blends of the 2008 whites.  Up until this point, we've been tasting through different lots, but nothing systematic.  My impression going into the tasting was that 2008, after all its challenges, would be a vintage more like the elegant 2006's than the blockbuster 2007's.  After our first day of tasting, I think I have to reevaluate that preconception.

We always begin our blending by making the Esprits.  This year, more than most years, we had to know what our upper limit was of Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc.  Some (weaker) years we can skip this step and make as much as we can based on the Esprit-quality lots we have.  But in recent years there have been many more high-quality lots than we've needed to make a reasonable amount of Esprit Blanc.  And sales of the Esprit Blanc in the wholesale market have been impacted by the poor economy more than any other wine we make, and we wanted to be sure we weren't making more of the wine than the market could absorb.  In the end, we set our upper limit of production at 1850 cases, only 800 of which will go out in wholesale (the rest we'll use in a wine club shipment, to sell in our tasting room, to hold back for a later release as a library wine, and for export).  By comparison, we made 2150 cases of the 2007 Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc.

The next step, even before we begin tasting, is to subtract out the gallonage that a reasonable blend of the Esprit Blanc would take and see what we have left.  We knew, from the components that we had left, we would have to produce at least three single-varietal wines (to populate upcoming wine club shipments) as well as the Cotes de Tablas Blanc.  Looking at the gallonages made it clear that we weren't going to be able to make a varietal Viognier and still have enough Viognier left over to form the core varietal of the Cotes de Tablas Blanc.  We've never been thrilled with Marsanne as a single varietal.  These two factors more or less dictated the wines that we had to try to make: a varietal Roussanne, a Grenache Blanc, and a Bergeron-style Roussanne from early-harvested lots.  Luckily, we'd anticipated wanting to make a Bergeron last fall, and had picked accordingly.

Finally, subtracting out the gallons that would be needed to make our three single-varietal wines, we could see roughly what the Cotes de Tablas Blanc would look like: something along the lines of 42% Viognier, 25% Roussanne, 22% Marsanne and 11% Grenache Blanc.  A surprise was that with any reasonable amount of Picpoul in the Esprit Blanc (we've used between 5% and 10% since 2004) we'd have some Picpoul left over for a single varietal.  We were excited about this; we hadn't been able to make one since 2005.  Unfortunately, unless we removed it entirely from the Esprit Blanc, which isn't likely, there wouldn't be enough to send out to the wine club.

So, this is what went on behind the scenes before we even began tasting.  Neil and Ryan (Neil Collins and Ryan Hebert, our winemakers, for the uninitiated) put together proportional blends of all the wines we'd need to make given the lots that we have in the cellar.  Some quick notes from the preliminary blends we tasted today:

• 2008 Cotes de Tablas Blanc: Surprisingly lush for what I'd classified in my head to be a middle-weight vintage.  Peach pit from the Viognier component stands out.  Not terribly floral yet; still a little muddy from recently concluded fermentation.  Very broad and long.  A little soft right now.  Looking forward to this settling after it's blended into tank, but should be up there with the 2007 (our best vintage of this wine to date) in style and quality.
• 2008 Bergeron: Again, surprisingly lush.  I might have thought this was our varietal Roussanne if I hadn't had them side by side.  A nice mineral character.  Honey, rocks, and breadth.  I thought that this could benefit from a little more brightness, but expect that it will come with a little more time in tank.
• 2008 Roussanne: Wow.  Rich and gorgeous.  Tons of honeycomb and sweet baking spices, some of them from nicely-integrated oak.  Structured, without any of the cedary tannins we sometimes see with very young Roussannes.  Low in alcohol (around 13%) which I never would have guessed given its weight and rich mouthfeel.  Potentially our best Roussanne ever.
• 2008 Grenache Blanc: Still a little sweet, which is always a challenge with Grenache Blancs in the spring (they're always the last varietal in the cellar to finish fermenting).  Still, even accounting for that, this should be gorgeous.  The brightest acids of any wine that I tasted today, with a nice citrus bite.  Actually carries the 6 grams of sugar, but will be better when that's fermented away.
• 2008 Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc: Similarly rich to the Roussanne, but subtly different in flavor.  A little more floral on the nose, and a little more citrus in the mouth.  Still lots of honey.  Poached pears?  Not quite as knock-your-socks-off as the Roussanne, but very seductive.  Perhaps a touch lower in acidity than we'd want (which means less perception of mineral) and we'll experiment with a couple of different blends that include more Grenache Blanc and Picpoul over the next few days.

We didn't taste a Picpoul today, as it will vary so much depending on what we decide to do with the Esprit Blanc.  As we have never put Picpoul into the Cotes de Tablas Blanc, and don't have enough to really impact a wine that we'll make somewhere around 3000 cases of, we'll just allow the Picpoul single varietal to float in quantity depending on how much we use for the Esprit Blanc.

All the wines shared a richness in the mouth that was noteworthy.  They also shared surprisingly low alcohols, with most hovering right around 13% and only the Grenache Blanc over 14%.  We tasted the Marsanne component that will go into the Cotes Blanc which had excellent concentration at 12.5% alcohol.

We'll reconvene on Monday to taste some different assemblages of Esprit Blanc, and hopefully have most of the wines blended into tank and settling by the end of next week.  Those of you coming for our blending seminar on April 11th are in for a treat!

Ten Years of Vintage Grades: Paso Robles Report Card 1999-2008

I was called recently by the Wine Spectator, who wanted my review of the 2008 vintage in Paso Robles for their annual report card for the recently-concluded vintage (you can read the resulting article on the Wine Spectator's Web site).  Distilling the complexities of a vintage down to a letter grade is challenging, probably even more so than reducing a wine to a score on the 100-point scale.  A wine is a snapshot, a finished product, and can be evaluated as such.  A vintage is a collection of events whose impacts vary even across a single vineyard, and vary more greatly as you expand the area under consideration.

When I struggled with the question, the writer helped me by saying that the Wine Spectator had rated the 2006 and 2007 vintages a "B+" and that most of my fellow vintners were rating this vintage a "B".  Really?  I understand everyone's desire to cast the most recent vintage in a positive light, but I don't see how anyone could assert that 2008 was only a fractional grade less positive than 2006 and 2007.

After mumbling something to the point that if the last two vintages were "B+" then this most recent vintage was at best a "B-" I tried to make a caveat.  I've felt (and I wrote here six weeks ago) that Rhone producers in the Paso Robles have the chance to make some of the standout wines of the vintage.  We didn't have the issues with shatter and over-rapid ripening that producers of Bordeaux varieties had, we didn't get impacted by the fires that affected much of Santa Barbara, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties, and we didn't get the late-September rain that drenched the North Coast.  Plus, the April frosts that impacted much of the state were more severe in regions to our north and south than they were here.

After I finished the call and had a chance to compose my thoughts a little, I wrote a follow-up note to the Wine Spectator writer who'd called me trying to clarify what I thought about the last few vintages.  My point boiled down to that there's no way that the last two vintages should have been rated as "B+" vintages.  If there ever were a vintage that deserved an "A" grade, it was 2007 (at least if you were grading for quality; quantities were low).  And both 2005 and 2006 should have received "A-" grades, in my opinion.  In this context, a "B" or "B-" grade for 2008 seems deserved for the region (though, for Tablas Creek and other Rhone producers near us, I think that it warrants an "A-" grade, a shade below 2007 and on par with 2005 and 2006).

I included in my note my grades of the last decade's worth of vintages here in Paso Robles, and wanted to share them with all of you.  I give a few brief notes of explanation following each grade, and I have linked the vintages to our harvest reports since we began keeping them if you would like our blow-by-blow experience as the vintage has unfolded:

2008 Vintage: B-  A difficult vintage bookended by frost in the spring and freeze in early October.  Yields were low, and Bordeaux varieties and Zinfandel suffered, and an August heat spike forced many producers to pick before they wanted to.  Beautiful weather in mid- to late-October saved the vintage for producers who could afford to wait.  Rhone varieties were most successful, and produced wines with good flavors and lower than normal alcohols.
2007 Vintage: A  A fabulous vintage defined by the cold, dry winter that preceded it.  Rainfall levels just 40% of normal stressed the grapes. The summer was moderate in temperature, producing a long, slow harvest with yields down 15%-30% from 2005 and 2006. The wines were intensely flavored, dark in color, with surprisingly gentle tannins for such a powerful vintage.  A potentially classic vintage for the Paso Robles region.
2006 Vintage: A-  Above-average winter rains and a cool spring got 2006 vineyards off to a wet and late start. A moderate summer followed, and the resulting harvest was delayed but unhurried, with beautiful weather persisting into November. Winemakers reported a higher then normal crop (perhaps a shade below 2005's levels) with notable elegance, pure flavors, medium body and comparatively lower alcohol levels.
2005 Vintage: A-  2005 was a nearly ideal growing season, begun with early flowering after a wet winter.  Yields were higher than normal and combined with moderate temperatures to encouraged gradual ripening.  Harvest began about 10 days later than normal, which meant that grapes had spent nearly a month longer on the vine between flowering and harvest.  The harvest resulted in the largest crush on record in the region, but the resulting wines were nevertheless intense and balanced.
2004 Vintage: B-  2004 was the third consecutive drought year, marked by a warm spring and very early flowering. A fairly mild summer morphed into a late-August heat wave, with much of the harvest completed by mid-September.  The problems came with the early (mid-October) onset of the rainy season, and many late-ripening varieties weren't harvestable. 2004's wines showed classic flavors and moderate concentration, and tended to drink well young.
2003 Vintage: B  A second drought year marked by the warm, dry winter and spring which brought bud break in early in March. An average summer, with hot days and cool nights still resulted in an earlier-than-normal harvest and wines with somewhat higher than normal alcohols.  Wines showed good richness and substantial tannins, but only moderate complexity.
2002 Vintage: A-  2002 growing season began with a warm, dry winter with the lowest rainfall in five years. Spring remained dry and cool, while June, July and August were very warm.  Moderate temperatures returned in September and weather stayed ideal well into November.  The resulting wines (like 2007) were intense and powerful, with high tannin levels but good complexity.  Red wines have aged beautifully.  Similar overall to 2007.
2001 Vintage: C  The 2001 growing season started with moderate vigor from average rainfall and cold temperatures.  A warm March led to early budbreak, which allowed a major frost event in mid-April to inflict major damage and dramatically reduce yields.  High winds during flowering compounded erratic yields.  A protracted heat wave in the early summer accelerated ripening and set the stage for an early harvest.  Yields were very low, and ripening uneven.  Wines were lighter in body and early-maturing.  Bordeaux varieties produced the best showing.
2000 Vintage: B+  2000 saw average rainfall, with warm springtime weather, early budbreak but no significant damage from frosts.  Summer daytime temperatures were about normal while cooler than average summer nights helped extend the growing season.  Harvest began two weeks later than normal, and wines had good intensity despite slightly higher than normal yields.  Wines showed good persistence and have aged well.  Similar overall to 2005.
1999 Vintage: B+  Slightly below average winter rainfall reduced yields and ripening was further accelerated by a warm, dry spring and summer.  Harvest began in mid-August, the earliest date on record at Tablas Creek.  The wines were intense and tannic when young, with slightly elevated alcohol levels.  The wines needed some time to come into balance, but many have aged magnificently.

Is this helpful?  Other winemakers, do these grades and descriptions seem right to you?

Challenges in assessing a vintage like 2008

I had a meeting with the Paso Robles Rhone Rangers yesterday, and while we were waiting for everyone to arrive we spent some time kicking around impressions of the recently concluded harvest.  The general consensus was that all we were missing from our list of calamities was a plague of locusts.  We'd had late spring frosts, major issues with shatter due to wind during flowering, weeks of smoky weather from Monterey County forest fires, a heat spike in August, a very unusual early October freeze, and rain at the end of the October.  Still, most of the producers there were encouraged about how the wines in their cellar were looking and tasting, and felt surprisingly positive about the vintage's prospects.

And, everyone was happy that we hadn't had to deal with some of the additional issues that producers in Napa and Sonoma had faced, most notably a big rainstorm in early October that just sent some clouds as far south as Paso Robles.

Some things were clear.  Yields were low (although not as much on Rhone varieties as on Bordeaux varieties or Zinfandel).  Reds were impacted by these low yields more than whites -- in fact, most of the producers there, like us, saw increased yields on whites.  Grapes came in very soft, but with relatively moderate sugars.  Wineries who were not estate and had to meet a substantial number of cases struggled to find adequate sources of fruit. 

It struck me that this is the sort of vintage where there will be a great temptation for writers looking to tell a simple story to dismiss the vintage as a bad one.  Cabernet, Merlot and Zinfandel all struggled throughout California with erratic yields, shatter, and uneven, early ripening.  Later-ripening varietals in the North Coast saw significant rain.  Any producer who had to source fruit to match or grow their annual production was forced to get fruit from places that they would normally have rejected out of hand.  These challenges were particularly severe for producers based in the North Coast.

Yet, for we Rhone producers in the Central Coast, the vintage has the potential to be a great one.  Yields on most Rhone varietals were lower (concentrating character) but largely avoided the problems with shatter that affected Bordeaux varietals and Zinfandel.  We dodged the early October rain that afflicted regions to our north.  The late, cold spring probably saved us from the August heat wave, as the grapes were still sufficiently unripe that there was time to moderate the sugar accumulation and acids stayed high.  The warm, sunny (perfect) weather for the last half of October allowed the vines time to recover from the cold snap earlier in the month and ripen without going flabby.  Finally, the relatively light yields meant that we were all done before it rained last weekend.  Some years, we have a significant amount of Mourvedre still out at the end of October.

I feel like one of those movie characters who after a gun fight looks around to see everything around him riddled with holes, but somehow emerges unscathed. 

And I hope that writers, when it comes time to assess the 2008 vintage, will take the time to look at the unscathed combatant rather than at the carnage all around.

End of Harvest 2008: two weeks of Mourvedre, Roussanne, and Counoise, and a better picture on yields than we'd been expecting

We're concluding the 2008 harvest today.  Yesterday, we brought in 6 tons of Mourvedre, and today added another 2.5 from from a last pass through late-ripening areas where we left odd bits here and there.  Yesterday's bins of Mourvedre are below:

We were pleased (and surprised) to see how the fruit continued ripening after our freeze nights earlier in October.  The handful of rows in the swales that were frozen stopped ripening (and provided the fruit for our whole-cluster fermentation experiment) but the rest of the vineyard, which we expected to also be impacted, recovered quickly.  The weather over the last three weeks has been gorgeous... warm days in the upper 80s and nights in the lower 40s.  You couldn't ask for better weather.  This has allowed fruit to continue to gain intensity and sugars but not lose acids too fast.  The fruit looks gorgeous: soft and ripe, with nice color and great flavors.  A Mourvedre cluster below is a good example of how the grapes start to deflate when they're fully ripe:

Over the past two weeks, we've harvested about 69 tons of fruit, including Mourvedre (38 tons), Roussanne (19 tons), Counoise (10 tons), and our last ton of Grenache.  This puts our final yields at 251 tons, or 10 tons more than last year.  Broken up by varietal:

Grape	2008 Yields (tons)	2007 Yields (tons)	% Change
Viognier	19.4	9.2	+110.9%
Marsanne	9.8	6.2	+58.1%
Grenache Blanc	23.5	19.6	+19.9%
Picpoul Blanc	6.6	4.9	+34.7%
Vermentino	2.8	3.9	-28.2%
Roussanne	53.4	39.9	+33.8%
Total Whites	115.5	83.7	+38.0%
Grenache	46.9	54.8	-14.4%
Syrah	30.1	41.6	-27.6%
Mourvedre	44.7	45.8	-2.4%
Tannat	5.4	5.5	-1.9%
Counoise	14.2	13.8	+2.9%
Total Reds	135.9	157.4	-13.7%
Total	251.4	241.1	+4.3%

This is a prettier picture than what we were projecting two weeks ago.  It will hurt to be down in reds, though not for a couple of years.  It will be great to have more whites than we did in the 2007 vintage.  Of course, we're still below our high water mark for yields (121 tons of whites and 177 tons of reds) we saw in 2006.

The weather is turning, with a forecast over the weekend for three separate storms and perhaps an inch of rain or more.  That would be great.  We really really really (really really really) need the rain to come this winter.  But whether it comes this weekend or not, it's a lot better to know that what we have in the cellar is really good, and fairly substantial in quantity.

Harvest, weeks of October 6th and 13th: Lignification, Whole Cluster Fermentation and a Yield Assessment

We've had two busy weeks of harvest surrounding last weekend's cold snap.  Before the freeze, we pushed to bring in the last of our Marsanne, Syrah and Grenache Blanc, our Picpoul, the bulk of our Grenache, and a significant chunk of our Roussanne.  We figured that anything that we could bring in that was ready we should, to avoid a rush after the frost. 

After the frosts, it warmed up again nicely and last week we brought in the rest of our Grenache, some more Roussanne from the frost-impacted section of Nipple Flat, and our first Mourvedre.  It only looks like the frost really hit the coolest sections near Tablas Creek and the bottoms of some larger hills.  But, in those sections, the vine leaves are dried and brown, the grapes are starting to fall away from the clusters, and there's no point leaving them out.  Most were ready anyway.

We're now done with our Viognier, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Picpoul Blanc, Vermentino, Syrah, Grenache and Tannat.  It gives us an opportunity to compare yields with last year.  The picture is not particularly pretty:

Grape	2008 Yields (tons)	2007 Yields (tons)	% Change
Viognier	19.4	9.2	+110.9%
Marsanne	9.8	6.2	+58.1%
Grenache Blanc	23.5	19.6	+19.9%
Picpoul Blanc	6.6	4.9	+34.7%
Vermentino	2.8	3.9	-28.2%
Grenache	45.6	54.8	-16.8%
Tannat	5.4	5.5	-1.9%
Syrah	30.1	41.6	-27.6%
Total	143.2	145.7	-1.8%

At this stage of harvest, any assessment is necessarily a snapshot.  We are still waiting for most of our Mourvedre, much of our Roussanne and some of our Counoise.  Still, it appears that the later-ripening varieties are if anything going to be below last year's quantities.  So, our hopes that yields would recover from 2007's historically low levels do not appear likely to be fulfilled.

In the cellar, we have taken advantage of the unusual year which has produced completely lignified stems in our Mourvedre.  Lignification occurs when stems turn from green to brown, and is one sign of physiological ripeness.  Two photos below show clusters of Mourvedre, with the cluster on the left fully lignified and the one on the right still mostly green:



In Paso Robles, grapes generally achieve ripeness (by most measures, including sugar and acid levels, berries softening, and seeds turning brown) while the stems are still green.  So, we de-stem our reds because we feel that fermenting in whole clusters is likely to transfer some green-tasting tannins from the stems into the wine. De-stemming is standard practice at Beaucastel, and we have de-stemmed every year.  Until now.

One of the several novelties of 2008 has been that the stems of our Mourvedre are more lignified than we've ever seen before.  This has allowed us to try some whole cluster fermentation as they do in traditional Bandol. So, we dumped the grapes into an open-top fermenter and have been crushing them by foot.  Cellar Assistant Chelsea Magnusson demonstrates:



We split this Mourvedre lot in half, and did the other half in the traditional de-stemmed method.  We'll keep the lots separate and hopefully be able to isolate the contributions of the whole clusters.

It's interesting to note that in recent years, producers in Bandol have had to abandon their traditional whole-cluster fermentations in favor of destemming.  They suspect that this is because the grapes are achieving sugar ripeness faster than ever before due to a warmer and warmer climate, and the sugar accumulation is outpacing the signs of physiological ripeness.  That we have seen such complete lignification is one of the best pieces of evidence that 2008 is properly termed a cool-climate vintage.  Given that, it's probably not a bad thing that yields have been low.  If we'd had higher yields, we might still be in the early stages of harvest.

Cold, Cold, Cold: A Harvest Freeze in Paso Robles

Until now, harvest 2008 has been proceeding under nearly ideal conditions.  Daytime highs have been in the 80s, lows in the 40s, and the grapes are ripening beautifully.  Enter this weekend.  A cold, dry arctic low dropped down into California about six weeks earlier than normal, and we have seen three consecutive nights below freezing in most of the Paso Robles AVA.  The weather report from the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance shows the results for last night:

As you can see, temperatures dropped well into the 20s both of the past two nights through most of the AVA.  Perhaps because of our proximity to the Pacific, or due to our elevation, or due to the mountains to our north that might have helped block the cold north wind, at Tablas Creek we didn't get hit quite as hard, but we still saw some damage.  The weather station is in the center of the vineyard, in a spot of more or less average temperatures, and there are always spots two or three degrees cooler.

Frosts during harvest are rarer than those during flowering, and damaging in different ways.  In the spring, you are more likely to have a frost which will impact most or all of your year's results, causing uneven ripening and low, erratic yields.  But, you can also mitigate spring frosts with overhead sprinkling, and most large commercial vineyards do this as a matter of course on cold spring nights.  In the fall, you don't want to sprinkle overhead because of the risk of mildew and of causing the nearly-ripe grapes to swell and split (think of the problems of harvest rain).  Harvest frosts don't typically render the grapes on the vine unusable.  Still, if the leaves of a vine are frozen, the vine stops photosynthesizing for the year and the grapes will only accumulate additional sugar through dehydration.

At Tablas Creek, we have completed a little more than half of harvest, and already-harvested sections are unaffected by the weekend's frosts.  Still, many of the areas that are still unharvested are those that were affected by this spring's frosts, and are in lower, more frost-prone areas.  We have one more night where it's forecast to approach freezing, after which we'll be able to assess the damage.  I'm sure it will be painful, though it doesn't so far look devastating.

Although I hope not, I would imagine that the damage in much of the rest of the AVA will be severe, adding to the pressure on many growers from a vintage already impacted by spring frosts, low rainfall, and wind during flowering that caused extensive shatter in Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel vineyards.

Harvest, Weeks of September 22nd and 29th

After what seemed like weeks of waiting, all of a sudden most of the vineyard is ready to pick.  Last week, we focused on whites and picked the rest of the Viognier, most of the rest of the Grenache Blanc, and the Picpoul Blanc (we also picked the first of the Grenache Noir, from our "American vine" block that we planted in 1994).  The total harvested for the week was just over 20 tons.

This week, we've switched our focus to reds and accelerated the pace of harvest with some rain threatening for this weekend.  When all is said and done, we will have harvested over 35 tons this week, including most of the rest of our Syrah, a good chunk more Grenache, our first Mourvedre and Counoise, and even some later-ripening whites: our first Marsanne and Roussanne for our Roussanne "Bergeron" program.  A few photos give you a great sense of what ripe Grenache looks like.  Note the relatively light color, even when ripe, and the fairly large, loose berries of Grenache clusters in a picking bin:

Below, from another angle, you can see the half-ton picking bins we use stacked on the right in the background.  You can also see the somewhat overcast day today. We're forecast for some rain showers tomorrow, which is very early for Paso Robles.  It's not supposed to be damaging (maybe a half-inch at the most) but we always worry that a first rain might usher in a weather pattern where a succession of storms roll in off the Pacific.  It doesn't look like that will be the case this time; the weather is forecast to be warm and dry next week.  Still, it has added some urgency to bring in what's ripe this week.

Finally, one more shot, this one in the cellar of Grenache clusters on the sorting table being fed into the destemmer machine.  We destem most of our reds (with the occasional exception of an occasional Mourvedre lot a la Bandol, some Tannat which is unwilling to be destemmed, and our Vin de Paille red) to keep them from accumulating tannins from the stems.  You can see the clusters falling into the destemmer, and the violence of the destemming process.

So far, we've harvested just over 100 tons.  Colors and flavors look great, sugars appear to be somewhat lower than normal, and yields range from about average to well below average depending on varietal.

Harvest, Week of September 15th: Watching and Waiting

Last week saw continued moderate temperatures, with most days peaking in the lower 80s and nights in the 40s.  This is perfect ripening weather... as long as you're not in a hurry.  The grapes are gradually accumulating sugars, and the cold nights mean that acids are remaining intense.  All this adds up to a week where we harvested very little.  We harvested just two days, and brought in roughly thirteen tons.  Half of this was our first Grenache Blanc of the season, and the rest evenly divided between most of our remaining Viognier and some additional Syrah.

So far for the year, we've harvested about 48 tons.  This puts us behind last year's pace (at the same time last year, we'd harvested 76 tons) but well ahead of 2006, when we didn't begin harvest until September 14th.

I thought it might be interesting to check in on the different red varietals to see what almost-ripe looks like.  I didn't feel the need to repeat the Mourvedre photos I took last week, but visited the blocks of Syrah, Grenache and Counoise.  First, Syrah, ready to pick (most of it has in fact been picked, but this is at the bottom of one of our hills in a comparatively cool spot).  Note the deep blue-black color and the berries starting to deflate:

Next on tap will be our Grenache.  We're scheduled to bring in our first picking later this week, from the top of one of the hills.  This photo is from a cluster toward the bottom of the same hill, which we probably won't pick for three weeks at least.  Note Grenache's traditional pink-purple color and relatively generous cluster size:

It was challenging to take a representative photo of Counoise, which had clusters already turning to raisins alongside others that were only mid-way through veraison. (If you click through to my post on veraison you'll see that Counoise was also the last to begin to turn color this summer).  The following cluster seemed pretty average, with the majority of the grapes a pretty blue-purple but with a few pinkish grapes too:

As we get deeper into harvest, we're getting more concerned about our yields.  Many other wineries nearby are reporting yields even smaller than the tiny yields of 2007.  The drastically lower yeilds seem to be concentrated in vineyards growing Zinfandel and Cabernet (both of which were afflicted by shatter this year) but even other Rhone producers are starting to sound alarmed at the size of their crops.  We still think we'll come in ahead of 2007's quantity numbers, but I have a lot less confidence saying that than I did two weeks ago.

Some nice photos of ripening Mourvèdre

We're not harvesting today, but I took a walk through the vineyard to see the state of things.  We'll be bringing in more Syrah, our Marsanne, and perhaps starting the Grenache and Roussanne next week, but there is a lot more of the vineyard that is still weeks away from ripeness.  One section that is looking good, but not tasting ripe (yet) is the Mourvèdre from the hill behind the winery which we call Mount Mourvèdre.  I managed to get a few nice photos of ripening clusters on the vines:

Last harvest, I ran into Cris Cherry of Villa Creek Cellars and asked him how his harvest was going.  He replied that his Mourvèdre vines had lost all their leaves, so he was beginning to think about picking them.  He was only half-joking.  Mourvedre vines always look awful by the time we pick, with any remaining leaves mostly brown.  I like this second shot for the way that it shows the Mourvèdre leaves, already turning brown despite needing another month at least of ripening:

Harvest 2008 (Week of September 8th): Viognier, Syrah, Vermentino, and Chardonnay

After a hot stretch in late August and the first few days of September caused several varietals to race toward ripeness simultaneously, last week saw more moderate temperatures and a much slower harvest pace than we'd feared.  We actually had a few foggy mornings out at the vineyard (unusual for September) and didn't harvest at all on Monday, September 8th.  Over the last four days of last week, we brought in just under 20 tons of fruit, including more Viognier (we're now about 70% done with our Viognier harvest) as well as the first twelve tons of Syrah.  This Syrah is fermenting in our new upright, 1500-gallon oak fermenters (foreground at right, with stacked foudres looking deceptively small behind and to the left).

In addition to the Syrah and Viognier, we also harvested our entire small-lot productions of Vermentino and Chardonnay.  Both were affected by the frosts this spring and came in light in yield, even more so than in 2007.  Our Chardonnay yielded just under two tons of fruit off of about two acres.  Our Vermentino yielded 2.75 tons, 30% less than in 2007.  This will impact our wine club shipments for next year, as neither variety will produce enough wine to include in a shipment.  Viognier yields, though, are up.  We're already 33% above last year's totals and not yet completed harvesting.  We have tentative plans to again make a varietal Viognier.

Overall, we're still of the belief that overall yields will be between the relatively high yields of 2006 and the extremely low yields of 2007.  We're estimating about 15,000 cases overall, maybe a little more.

This week, we expect to be harvesting Grenache Blanc, our first Roussanne (for our "Bergeron" program), and more Viognier and Syrah, though nothing too urgently.  The weather is forecast to remain moderate through the end of the week, and then to heat up again starting over the weekend.

Finally, I'll leave you with one more photo from last week: blooming sunflowers from the field surrounding our straw-bale barn, which we planted earlier this summer to attract beneficial insects.