Well, as hard as I tried to stick to this whole couple of weeks update, alas harvest got the best of me.
What felt like a gentle roll built to a full tidal wave of fruit and ferments. As I write this now, I have officially pressed our last lot of fruit (Reeve’s Grenache, more on this later).
“Hey buddy, it’s Daniel. I’m farming this little vineyard of Zin in west Templeton… 100 years old. Looking for people to sell some fruit to and put Zin back on the map”.
When you get a call offering to pick some fruit from a 100 year old vineyard, you say yes. This is one of those opportunities that comes around through knowing knowing the Paso community. So cool. I went out the day before the pick was scheduled to select a section in the vineyard. I found this crunchy section kind of down below. No numbers, just all based on taste. The next morning was a small crew of myself, Daniel, and the husband wife owners of the vineyard. They made us biscuits and we snacked and picked about 2 bins worth of fruit.
We had beers at 7am. I hauled the fruit up to six mile and dumped them into one fermenter.. 100% whole cluster. The next day I ran numbers: 19.8 brix, 3.4 pH. The original idea with the wine was to make a Barolo inspired serious red… something that could be aged for a while. But this was something totally different. I pivoted. This is going to be a seriously light and bright red. After pressing and going to barrel, the wine is electric pink and around 12% alcohol. It drinks like the very best of whole cluster pinot noir. We will be releasing this wine in the Spring and may bottle it without sulphur.
On Sunday, September 6th, we got a small group of our friends together to pick a section of the Reeve’s Vineyard. This is something I’ve wanted to do since starting in the wine industry.
“Hey, can I invite our friend Jon to help?”
“Jon, the fisherman?”
“YEAH!”
“Can he bring a breakfast fish of sorts?”
“Of course”
Jon did end up bringing the fish and made us tacos during a lovely pause-café at around 8am. We had wine and cheese and donuts off the tailgate of his truck and our trailer. It was a dream come true.
This day, we picked 1 ton of grenache from the lower section of the vineyard that didn’t flow very well for some direct pressed “rosé”. It’s more a blanc de noir and something I’ve been thinking of doing since tasting the Dunite’s Rose that goes through malo. I think we get hung up on this idea that white grapes make white wine and red grapes make red wine. What happens when you pick a red grape like a white grape and treat it the same? Direct press, hot ferment, oxidize the juice, full malo. I think we’ll blend it into our Reeve’s blanc along with the Chardonnay to add some texture and different fruit characteristics. I have a really cool racking idea for this wine too come spring.
The next pick was Counoise from RAG. This is a wine I’ve been incredibly excited to make… since making the syrah I’ve felt that the grape that makes more sense is a later ripening bigger berry varietal. The vineyard had been ripening pretty slowly, but like everything this year, was super uneven. I couldn’t quite get a feel for where the whole block was. Wednesday September 9th we had a MASSIVE heat wave move in. This is dangerous for a dry farmed vineyard that is almost ripe. I called the pick for the next day and as I was dropping bins in the 108 degree I ran up the hill to look at the fruit for the first time in a couple of weeks. Mind you, it’s an hour drive from our house to get there so to call the pick blind is not ideal. I’m tasting the fruit and there’s like no flavor… the grapes are hot… the skins are thick. The numbers before the heat wave were close but acids were really high.
The next day I pick up the fruit. It’s about where I was expecting it. I’m just rolling with it. Much like the Zinfandel, I dump all the fruit into a fermenter, crush with my feet, and hope for the best. The next day… its perfect. 22.5 brix, 3.25pH. Whoa. The juice is light pink, but by day 8 in the ferment has turned dark like syrah. The aromas are wild and beautiful. I can’t believe it. This wine will be released in the spring as is a testament to this vineyard’s power.
The following Monday I scheduled the final pick for Reeve’s. This was the top of the hill and definitely the ripest and most uniform section of the vineyard. I like the idea of splitting the picks - one that’s a little lean but has a lot of acidity and one that is riper for texture and spice.
Of all the fruit and ferments that came in this year, I think this was my favorite. It came in at 25.3 brix and 3.36pH. This vineyard holds acidity. This is also a bit of a development for me as a winemaker. I’ve always thought “we need to pick earlier for lower alcohol and more acidity”. In a lot of cases this definitely worked. In some cases it didn’t. I’ve always been against dogma, but in a way, I created my own dogma by saying I want lower alcohol wines. I was tasting the first pick and loved the flavors of it, but did feel like the overall wine needed something extra. I let this one hang through the heat wave and get a little riper - there was some desiccation and raisins etc. The blend between the 2 picks is going to be spectacular. We were originally only going to do a syrah from the vineyard and then declassify the Grenache to vibe, but I think we may now make 3 wines from the property (oh and speaking of the chardonnay off of this property… the stuff that we picked super early… it’s incredible.)
This then led us up to the last pick of the year, which just happened to be a white grape called Assyrtiko. Originally from the Greek Island of Santorini, this grape is incredibly late ripening. It has a super thick skin and lots of acidity - perfect for the hot Mediterranean climate we live and work in. I must admit though, the chemistry in the juice after pressing was not anything impressive.
We did lose a lot of the acidity in the heat wave, and really did not gain any sugar. Oh well… you live and you learn. My hope was that this could be one of those grapes that handles the heat super well and makes a wine fresh and full of acidity, so hanging it through the heat wave was a bit of test. Now we know.
And just like that, harvest basically has come to an end. I have a few more picks for Misty Oaks but that should be finished up next week.
Overall, the quality has been great. I am very happy with all of the wines that were made this year. I think we are set up for a phenomenal year of sales.
