That's it, we're pretty much done with 2009 harvest. We pressed off the syrah tank last weekend, so it's all resting hopefully getting ready go through malo-lactic fermentation before it gets cold! For now though, the weather is divine! For the past 2 weeks we have had nothing but sunny days, 25-27 degree temps. Warm but not hot. Perfect fall weather.
Harvest lasted longer than any other harvest to date. Well, with 5 years now under our belts, that's not a long
history, but so far as our history goes, it was quite drawn out. We started with the whites at the end of August, then proceeded to pick our big vineyard of Grenache. After that we decided to wait a few days. The ripening was really uneven. The syrah, just wasn't tasting right yet, and our other vineyard of Grenache was super sweet but the skins were very bitter. So we waited a few days. Then we picked half of our second Grenache vineyard which was really suffering from lack of rain and decided to leave the other half for a bit longer... Complicated, but a nice way to harvest, we got to have a day off here and there, which is great. A week later we finished the syrah. It was odd to be picking Grenache, and waiting on the Syrah, but this year was a little backwards all in all.
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Once again, we were amazed by the willingness of our friends and family to come out and help. This year the medal goes to my parents' neighbors (John and Jean Buss, Axel and Gerlinda Markert, and Michel Berberian)! They were our core group of pickers this year along with our good friends Lucy Till and Sophie and Gaspard Aichele, who are always our heros and pick as many days as they can! It was once again a very international crowd. We had Germans, English, American, French, Dutch, and a whole gaggle of dogs!
Matt and I are off to Paris for a weekend of fun with my sister and brother-in-law. After that we will hopefully return to our normal programming! Lots of fun events coming up this fall: the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Lisbon, the annual trip to Nurenberg, Germany for K&Us yearly open-house, wine tasting and overall excellent food and wine event, and lots of other fun things I suppose!
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