Hello

Wow, what a great summer, nice and dry with plenty of sun. This is exactly what we need for growing some great wine out in the vineyard. One way of comparing year to year is to look at the degree days and here are a few totals up to Aug 7. 2005-996, '07-920, '10-1038, '11-962 and the average over the past six yrs is 925. It sure did start out looking pretty rough with all that rain in the spring but I'm thinking about mimicking the rainfall again next year with the trickle irrigation system. Here's why- grapevines love water (as do most vines) and were able to charge their system nice and early. This led to a very healthy growth period with no stress and consequently a very healthy canopy with lots of leaves working away creating sugar. IF we can supply the vines with water AND mother nature can supply the sun then we would have the best of both worlds. Now I know what you're thinking, and you are correct that we don't want a massive canopy with all that shading etc…but the key word is "control". We have received about an inch of natural rain here in the last 2 months and have augmented with one trickle watering which is just enough to prevent them from shutting down. We are trying to maintain the grapevines at this time, and not grow them, so that all energy is going into the fruit, which brings us to the next topic of crop load. This year because of the overcast days during flowering the fruit set or crop load is lighter than normal or about the same as last year. This is generally good news as we don't have to thin as much but remember that "control" thing I mentioned earlier, well I lost it and some blocks such as Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon need more fruit to help hold them back.
I mentioned last newsletter about a new destemmer and I am happy to say that it is in the press house ready to work. We hesitated with this purchase last vintage and borrowed one to experiment with a few things, mainly the crushing option. On the borrowed machine we could bypass the crushing if we wanted, which is what we did most of the time. We were happy with the settling in the white tanks as the juice was naturally cleaner (not as smashed up) and were also happy with the red must. We were cautious not to under process and therefore produce an unwanted whole berry red fermentation . There was enough splitting of the berry with the destemmer and the monho pump that things worked out the way we liked. For this reason the unit bought is a destemmer only with no crushing (but can be added if needed down the road). The monho pump was also traded in for a larger capacity model, which will help with the whites.
There are a few new things this year that I would like to draw your attention to. Firstly please visit our website for a "supplies check list" that we strongly encourage you to fill out at home and bring with you when you visit , as well as the "yeast starter, malolactic, acidity addition" and any other helpful sheets. We are also having a wine making seminar for beginners on Sept 25 1pm and please RSVP, as well as two round barrel forums where open questions are encouraged. These will be on Oct 16 and 23 from 4-6. Please visit earlier to pick up juice and stay later with your questions.
Please enjoy the rest of the summer, thank you for your time and see you in the fall.

The Watsons