We began harvesting our estate Pinot Noir on Sat, Sept 22 with clear, sunny skies. Harvest conditions were perfect: it was cool in the morning and warmed up to the 70’s in the afternoon. Looking at the weather reports, we could see rain in the distance. Not just a sprinkle or one day of showers, but a solid week of rain. We didn’t know whether to believe the weather forecast, and so we brought in our fruit at a normal pace. As the week wore on and the weather forecast continued to point to rain, panic set in and we weighed our options. If there hadn’t been a threat of rain, we would have let the fruit hang for a few more days. Instead, we started picking as fast as we could. On Saturday, the last day before the big rains were expected to arrive, it sprinkled throughout the afternoon while our pickers and crush crew brought in a record 95 tons of fruit (our previous record high was 54 tons in one day, set last year). Our hard work paid off as around 11:00pm on Saturday the skies opened up and the rains came down hard. Within 32 hours, we had received 1.2” of rain. Weather forecasts predict more of the same for the rest of the week.
We feel fortunate to have 80% of our whites and 92% of our reds in the winery. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we still have 9 acres that remain unharvested.
Why is rain so bad? Besides the obvious answer that cooler temperatures will mean lower sugar levels, it’s also possible that the berries will plump up with water and split. Watery grapes can mean watery wine, which we clearly don’t want. There’s also a danger that rot will appear, which is something we’ve successfully avoided this growing season.
P.S. For those of you who have a copy of my mother’s book, At Home in the Vineyard, I encourage you to read two passages about the harvests of 1984 and 2003 on pages 77-78 and 202-205, respectively. These two harvests were complete opposites and show the power of Mother Nature during September. 1984 was a particularly wet vintage and 2003 was an incredibly hot one. It’s interesting how many different curve balls Mother Nature has thrown us over the years.
