26 Jun In the Vineyard – June 2015
The Summer of Abundant Sunshine
After 10 years in our little house in McMinnville, we finally broke down and bought an air conditioner. This weekend we might even go past 100 degrees! Last year was the warmest growing season on record and now it looks like we are at least 2 weeks ahead of that. At this rate everything will be coming into the winery way before October. As of today the vines have all finished bloom and the fruit set looks fantastic. The clusters look big and uniform so I don’t think there is going to be a shortage of fruit this year. Most folks will try and hang a bit more fruit on the vine to try and slow down this accelerated ripening from the heat. The forecast for July looks like much more of the same….Hot and dry. We may actually pick the Chardonnay in August if this keeps up. That’s pretty normal for California grapes, but it’ll be first for me in Oregon during my 15 year winemaking career. Time to lather on the sun block.
In the winery….it’s nice and cool in the cellar
The wines from 2014 are aging beautifully in barrel right now. Jeanie and I are going go thru each barrel this week to begin blending trials and then determine which barrels will be used for each of our bottlings. This is quite an involved process that might take several weeks to figure out. The remaining lots still in barrel are the Chardonnay from Open Claim Vineyard, Pinot Noir from Yates Conwill Vineyard, and finally the Pinot Noir from Beacon Hill Vineyard. If you are a fan of the 2012 vintage then you will LOVE the 2014’s! Think 2012 with riper flavors and a bit more alcohol. They are very sexy wines for sure. I’m not sure we can go wrong on our blending decisions for these wines…..everything tastes incredible.