Harvest Status Update:

Sauvignon Blanc coming along nicely, weather is cooperating in keeping things going slowly. Mornings are foggy and cool, fog doesn't burn off till about 1100 - 1200. Days have continued to be mild, not too warm. Brix* level is not particularly close to what we want to see, flavors are nowhere yet. Unless dramatic change in weather ( not likely ) not likely before 2 weeks from last Friday puts us into easily after Labor Day.

Next grapes up would be the hillside part of Watson and the Estate petite sirah. Weather is helping here also to stretch things out a little keep dehydration to a minimum, no way any of that will see picking before second week of sept, likely third week.

Other Watson zin and Estate zin will have habit of " catching up " and be perhaps week behind. The shader part of estate zin may be another week after that which puts us at the end of sept.
Pinot 667 clone and Lee likely pretty close about same time last week sept,

I would think we would be done by second week October final pick Pinot and Estate Zin

* (Degrees Brix (symbol °Bx) is the sugar content of an aqueous solution. One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by weight (% w/w) (strictly speaking, by mass) If the solution contains dissolved solids other than pure sucrose, then the °Bx is only approximate the dissolved solid content.)

A few pics from yesterday Aug 16th

Health & Happy Vines

Notice all the fruit we dropped to intensify flavors

Zin still not full veraison

Pettite Sirah looks like ahead of the Zin.  Nice full clusters

Plants still full of fruit

Our Sav Blanc Tank getting delivered

Winemakers Notes 2012 – 8500 Dry Creek Rd

Welcome all to the wine world which is welcome all to farming !

Jack asked for a summary of my thought s how the 2012 winegrowing  year is shaping up.

Synopsis – Climatically speaking this year has been, to date , more like a “ normal “ year than we  have seen for some time. The relatively mild spring, ample rains in mar / apr followed by mild to warm temperatures have given us a larger crop than we’ve seen in years, and so far excellent quality.

Overwinter – Nov – Feb

Fall to winter started mild but finally developed cold weather and freezing nights that insured good true dormancy. It is important to get true dormancy, the vines sleeping until the ground temperature approaches  50 or so degrees. This is the best time for pruning as this time assures minimal chance of infection when the canes are cut.

Early Spring  Feb – Apr

Cold weather allowed plenty of time to prune before the vines awakened. Early on there was a concern of the paucity of rainfall, but March and April made up the deficit to bring most areas into the normal category. The rains did a nice job of saturating the ground and assisted in warming the soil to some extent. We saw normal vine activity in March and appropriate timing for bud burst in April.

Budbreak to fruitset  April – June

Normal budbreak , cool nights and clear days has given very clean wood, clean buds and excellent fruit set ( crop size ) compared to the last few years. Clear days and breezes have kept mildew pressure quite low over the spring push and somewhat aggressive vine growth.  As the pollination finished and the first indications of crop size became apparent, it became obvious that even with nominal fruit thinning, the crop size would exceed the last two years ( weather holding )

Fruitset to veraison June – August

Fruit set has been heavy and required thinning to bring the vine in balance. In traveling around the county I am seeing quite a good crop in all varietals, and excellent quality. We have seen a number of very hot days, but to this point, specifically in the 8500 Dry Creek ranch, the canopy management and irrigation regimen has prevented any real stress in the vines. The old vine zinfandel next door is showing all the characteristics of an old vineyard with some stress, but relatively even veraison across the vineyard and good berry development. Our pinot noir is in an area nice proximity to the pacific ocean and this areas does not see “ really “ hot days. Fruit load in the pinot is nominal to this point and very clean. The sauv blanc is in excellent condition. Most all varieties are in the last stages of veraison and there seems to be a growing separation in anticipated harvest dates of the varieties we are making wine from this year. The earliest should be the sauv blanc perhaps beginning September together with one block of “ old vine zin “, this should be followed closely with the petite sirah off the ranch, then the bulk of the zin  followed end of month ( sept ) or early October by the pinot noir and the last of the zinfandel.

Summary

Overall this year is looking similar to 2005 / 2007, both relatively warm years and good harvests. To this point the fruit could not look better. Key of course is always “ will the weather hold ?”  Part of the answer to that question is the fact that to this point, the weather is offering a harvest in the month of September, a month historically, we do not usually see adverse weather.

In the next three weeks we will have the first opportunity to get a feel,  “ a taste “ if you will, for what we might expect from the wine made from all this fruit .

M Gulyash

Aug 6th

Veraison at Dry creek is mostly complete for the petite sirah ( 80 -90 % ), for the zin it is averaging about 60% across the middle and at the fringes and " north / west " end more like 30%, some has not entered veraison yet. Fruit loads are quite good, thinning will be completed tomorrow. Weather is continuing to be ( generally ) warm ( weekend was really pleasant, upper 70's to low 80's in the valley ) there was some drizzle from a front that went through, but in walking the vineyards today could not see any impact from that. A spectacular growing season and all looks good.

7/29/2012
Dry Creek vineyard is right at beginning to show some veraison, a few colored berries, no more.
Watson Old vine Zin hillside is a bit more stressed and showing verasion, main section down low ( and flat ) more lush and a little behind.

7/12/2012
We've been dripping the vineyard most all this week, vines are in great shape. We are setting up to do some thinning.

The reasons I haven't started to thin yet are still plenty of time to thin and fruit still hard and green, will be softening soon, but still fine for now.

In any event we will drop fruit in the next 10 days or so.

Watson's Old Zin vines stressing and a little dry. Not being too aggressive in this regard as we will be sorting out raisins and he will be losing tons so to some extent it is in his best interests to keep the plants from stressing too much ( water stress ) Watering at this time (before veraison ) doesn't change the ( ultimate ) fruit chemistry, AFTER veraison it begins to unbalance the potassium / magnesium and other fruit chemistry. There is extra fruit hanging this year (they did do some thinning on Watson) so there is no concern about having enough fruit.
 Beyond that, the vineyard looks pretty good, being farmed a " old school " for my tastes. Not aggressive with nutrient levels ( compost or fertilizers ) and more pro - active about developing a better canopy to keep the fruit better protected from burning / dehydration.

6/25/2012-6/27/2012
Canopy management or leaf pulling 10-12 guys and tractor guy doing spraying. The cane cutter or hedger for topping.
We will be looking at crop thinning coming up ( this week / next ) These should be the last " big " vineyard work until harvest.

 

6/14/2012
recalculating the updated wine volumes due to the increased fruit loads.

This years spring weather has been pretty spectacular and all the fruit sets I'm seeing are up appreciably from the last couple years. Having said that I will try to temper that somewhat with reporting ( also ) most all the fruit we've contracted for ( Watson zin, Valdez sauv blanc and Torres pinot ) is NOT being farmed for high tons. Most all blocks I've seen are being farmed very much for high quality ( low bud counts and low pounds per vine )

So I don't expect to see an unusually high yield from the contracted growers, but remember that is still relative, I still expect, weather holding, we will see an increase in tons this year from 2010 / 2011 levels.

5/26/2012
The 8500 vineyard is coming up very even and in excellent balance so far. We are just in bloom now and although we had a little weather yesterday I don't think it will have much impact, it was widely scattered Tstorms / showers not a lot of water. Otherwise it has been pretty spectacular, lots of sun, it has been very windy but I don't see much wind damage in the vineyard. Ulises has applied the second round of spraying, and I suspect that as long as the usual post frontal winds come up and dry everything out very quickly. There are no real issues in terms of mold / mildew at this time, everything is open and exposed.

4/6/2012

1.       We have placed our initial order for oak barrels from France for the 2012 harvest, are looking for used barrels to supplement the new, and have a number of other supplies and equipment in the process of being purchased.

4/3/2012
First sprays will begin following bud break, when growth is around 1 inch
Weather looks to be turning more " spring like ". Frosts are rare in dry creek, they can occur, but you virtually no wineries have " frost protection " on the north end of the valley