Harvest 2014, Wrapping Up
As of today, crush is winding down at Foursight. We spent the past week pressing Pinot Noir (separating skins from juice, then putting that finished wine into barrel). We have one lot of Pinot Noir fermenting in the cellar, still receiving three punchdowns per day, and several lots to finish pressing this coming week. That last straggler lot of Pinot Noir will be finished, pressed and into barrel, in a few weeks' time.
Although we have one small estate, the harvest season can be quite complicated because we're farming, picking and doing the winemaking all as a family. We can't just call the grower and schedule the pick, then worry about the winery side. We have to plan all the vineyard logistics ourselves, followed by helping to ensure the fruit comes in clean and cold. Then we're changing gears and transitioning to the cellar, from sorting to fermentation, to pressing and barreling. We also sell fruit to several other wineries, with their own set of parameters to meet.
This year we've produced our normal line-up of Pinots (Zero New Oak,
Charles Vineyard & Clone 05), plus our Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.
We also produced another vintage of the Paraboll Pinot Noir, and are
attempting to hang enough fruit to make a late-harvest Semillon.
Due to our climate, we normally cannot achieve enough sugar in the Bordeaux whites (our Sauvignon Blanc & Semillon) to craft a dessert wine. The Semillon is particularly late here, making it impossible to get enough ripeness in an average year. However, because of the early season this vintage, we're hoping that we have enough time to pull it off. Wish us luck!
This will be the first time that the entire crush will be finished by mid-October, leaving us more time off in the fall than we've had before. Plenty of time, we hope, to prep for the new arrival to the family: Kristy & Joe's first son, due in February! We're excited to welcome the fifth generation of our family to the property.
Although we have one small estate, the harvest season can be quite complicated because we're farming, picking and doing the winemaking all as a family. We can't just call the grower and schedule the pick, then worry about the winery side. We have to plan all the vineyard logistics ourselves, followed by helping to ensure the fruit comes in clean and cold. Then we're changing gears and transitioning to the cellar, from sorting to fermentation, to pressing and barreling. We also sell fruit to several other wineries, with their own set of parameters to meet.
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| Pinot Noir in the fermentor |
Due to our climate, we normally cannot achieve enough sugar in the Bordeaux whites (our Sauvignon Blanc & Semillon) to craft a dessert wine. The Semillon is particularly late here, making it impossible to get enough ripeness in an average year. However, because of the early season this vintage, we're hoping that we have enough time to pull it off. Wish us luck!
This will be the first time that the entire crush will be finished by mid-October, leaving us more time off in the fall than we've had before. Plenty of time, we hope, to prep for the new arrival to the family: Kristy & Joe's first son, due in February! We're excited to welcome the fifth generation of our family to the property.
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