Well, normally we would be gathering ourselves for the last few days of crush by now. However, this is not a normal year. The cooler weather has continued to persist and now we are getting a little wet stuff.
The fruit has been holding up quite well. As mentioned before, fruit flavors have shown themselves early and are continuing to grow in depth and intensity. We just need to get sugars up and acids down.
As of Friday, before the rain, brix were running between 17 and 19. Our target is 23 and we are typically at 21.5 to 22 by now. This suggests that we will not be harvesting soon. The weather may be the bigger determining factor. With today’s rain, we will be out tomorrow looking for evidence of botrysis (mold) and/or split grapes. If we do, we will remove that fruit and determine what we need to do to keep the rest of the fruit healthy.
We are expecting nice weather next week and until the 18th when another little front is expected, but it appears that may be short lived and then back to nice weather. It will be the weather after that that will most likely determine when we harvest.
Having said all that, our bias is to let the fruit hang and work around the weather. That means that my best guess for harvest would be the pinot gris sometime around the 21st or 22nd, the Natasha block pinot noir around the 27th or 28th, and the Jordan block around Halloween.
We’ll keep you posted.
