A little rain is a good thing. It washes away the dust and makes the fruit seem fresher. A little rain followed by sun would have been perfect and that's what the weather initially predicted. BUT of course, that's not what happened. We got a LOT of rain - more than 3 inches! All of our neighbors brought in their grapes before it started and we chewed our nails for three days as it soaked down to our souls. Fortunately, our grapes have deep roots because we dry farm and we had three months without rain -- so we didn't take up much water from the downpour. We had one full day of beautiful sun then pulled in the grapes with spectacular results. The flavors are robust, the sugars are spot on what we wanted and everything is clean and pretty. We expect this to be an amazing vintage. Farming is risky. Craft winemaking is steeped in tradition and part of that is holding out for more -- most of the time it's worth it. Looks like 2012 will be a year for the books.
Right now we're in the throes of fermentation so that relief has been replaced with a lingering exhaustion until everything's in barrel in a couple of weeks. We hope many of you will visit us during the coming year. Happy Harvest to all! Woof!
Molly Cam Pics:
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| black pearls still hanging |
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| sitting pretty in the shade of the big leaf maple |
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| "sigh" resting before destemming |
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| pretty pretty pinot noir 2012 |
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| into the destemmer |
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| falling in love |
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| stems on their way to compost |
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| beautiful color! |
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| the rush of punchdowns, fermentation begins |
