Life Before Harvest
In the Pinot business, July marks a slow slide toward harvest, usually beginning with bottling the prior year's wines.
Next week we begin to put our estate Pinot Noirs from the 2015 vintage into bottle. This is slightly earlier than our average bottling date because harvest has also been early the past two vintages. Just to hedge our bets, we moved bottling (because the general idea is to bottle BEFORE harvest so you have room in the cellar and empty barrels)!
Although winemakers typically despise bottling (so many logistics and something always goes awry), I love it. Seeing last year's wine make it safely into bottle and one step closer to being in the hands of our customers gives me a thrill that I often don't have the time, or sometimes brainpower, to appreciate during the busier moments of harvest and crush.
July is also our last month to celebrate summer before we get really busy multi-tasking between the cellar, vineyard and tasting room. On July 23-24 we'll be hosting our fourth annual Anderson Valley Barrel Tasting Weekend with 21 wineries from Anderson Valley and the Yorkville Highlands appellation participating. It's a really fun (and reasonably priced) event -- $20 for two days of tasting and a glass. Check it out here.
We also have our first Wine Bar Night on July 15th at our Boonville tasting room. We'll be serving Pork Crostini with Onion Jam and Savory Mushroom Rolls to pair with our wines from Noon to 7 p.m. Tasting $5 and glasses and bottles available to purchase for the patio!
We expect harvest to be in September this year -- more typical for our site, and will announce our harvest activities as we get closer.
Next week we begin to put our estate Pinot Noirs from the 2015 vintage into bottle. This is slightly earlier than our average bottling date because harvest has also been early the past two vintages. Just to hedge our bets, we moved bottling (because the general idea is to bottle BEFORE harvest so you have room in the cellar and empty barrels)!
Although winemakers typically despise bottling (so many logistics and something always goes awry), I love it. Seeing last year's wine make it safely into bottle and one step closer to being in the hands of our customers gives me a thrill that I often don't have the time, or sometimes brainpower, to appreciate during the busier moments of harvest and crush.
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| Caught in action! Working the bottling line during Semillon bottling. |
We also have our first Wine Bar Night on July 15th at our Boonville tasting room. We'll be serving Pork Crostini with Onion Jam and Savory Mushroom Rolls to pair with our wines from Noon to 7 p.m. Tasting $5 and glasses and bottles available to purchase for the patio!
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| Our fifth generation and grandpa, having a tractor lesson! |
We expect harvest to be in September this year -- more typical for our site, and will announce our harvest activities as we get closer.
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