Keep It Coming!
The pace has picked up significantly since Monday due to a threat of a major rain event starting this weekend. The weather reports say that this major rain event could bring us nonstop rain for a week. That could be devastating! The pickers are going as fast as they can to harvest the Pinot still hanging on the vine (about 1/2 is left), and our cellar crew worked 17.5 hours yesterday to process everything. We processed a record of nearly 70 tons yesterday.
The fruit that’s coming in looks fantastic. In fact, Marcy Vuylsteke who’s been sorting our Pinot for the past four years, said that the fruit this year looked the best she’s ever seen. With fruit this perfect, sorting goes much faster. Does perfect fruit mean excellent wines? It’s too early to tell… but it sure looks promising so far.
Q: How’s harvest going, Russ?
A: It’s going – fast!
Q: How’s harvest going, Alex?
A: We’re making wine!
Meanwhile, those of us left in the office are doing our rain-rain-go-away dance.
Everybody is a grape expert these days!
On the sorting line, nothing but the best Pinot Noir clusters make it to our Dundee Hills Pinot Noir.