Full Moon Musings

I love sleep, so perhaps the most challenging thing about harvest is the lack of it! But the challenges of a sleepless ten weeks are easily overcome by the magic of night harvest. In Napa Valley during harvest, it is like an underground club. You drive up the Trail to your harvest destination and you see all the lights at all the different wineries, and you think, ‘Oh, they’re picking that block today.’ You run into the same people at Model Bakery or Starbucks as soon as they open and give each other a knowing nod, or a ‘How’s harvest?’ One of the best treats is being able to drive through St Helena with no traffic.

But my favorite part about night harvest is the moon. And last night’s full harvest moon was exceptionally lovely, and on this cold crisp night, I could really sense the changing of the seasons and I know we have only a few more weeks to go.

Last week was our busiest week, and we harvested almost 30% of our total production in one week! Merryvale finished harvesting our Chardonnay on Friday, which concluded the harvest of all of our white grapes. After today, we have only one block of Merlot left to pick, having brought in Buena Vista selection Merlot from Hyde Vineyards this morning.

We still have a lot of our Cabernet left on the vines, and we look forward to a little warming later this week to get some more Cabernet into the winery as the week ends.

We have already pressed some reds, and harvest parties are already on the schedule. We look forward to bringing in the rest of our Cabernet, and are optimistic about the quality we are seeing in the cellar so far. Cheers! Remi Cohen