Vintage updates from PEJU!

Hi and welcome to our harvest blog! We’ll be giving you the down and dirty on harvest at Peju. Yes, fall in the Valley is romantic and beautiful with the pleasant smells of grapes wafting through the air, but in our world of wine production, things are not always so glamorous. We’ll take you through the process with us every step of the way, good, bad and ugly – all of the things that make the final product even more rewarding. We have a blast along the way and continue to learn new ways of making the absolute best wines we can from our vineyards. So here we go…

In order to ramp up for a busy three months of picking, fermenting and barreling, we recruit the brightest, best and most fun harvest interns from around the world! Every year we draft talent from foreign countries this year we have a South African, named Arno Smith who hold a degree in Enology and Viticulture from Elsenburg and who has done vintage in Australia and South Africa. He is not only super friendly and smart, but more importantly FUN! Luckily he arrived just in time (with only one small Visa snafu) to help us prep the cellar for harvest and finish bottling our 2007 Napa Valley red wines.

We kicked off harvest on August 21 and have since picked all of the Sauvignon Blanc blocks from our Persephone Vineyard in Pope Valley. All was good on the harvesting end, however, once the fruit got to the winery we had a few issues: Day one, the Bin dumper on the Forklift wasn’t working (hydraulic oil leak), Day two, the hose from the Press going to the tank got clogged, Day three, a fuse on the Press went out, Day four the Transformer on the Press went out – and every day since things have been running smoothly (Yikes, I am afraid as I type this that I just might Jinx things)… On the bright side, we are noticing amazing flavors from the fruit and thus far extremely pleased with what we are seeing this vintage! At this point all the SB has gone to tank, yeast has been added and fermentation is in full gear (btw, our cellar has the most marvelous smell).

We also received 60,000 predatory mites via FedEx this week to release in our organically farmed Rutherford vineyard! Spider mites- beware! The microscopic “good mites” arrive on bean plants that we in turn place throughout the vineyard canopy. The good mites make their new home in the vineyard and prey on all the bad bugs that can hurt the vines. It’s a great alternative to pesticides and chemical sprays.

Next up – Chardonnay and Syrah! We’ll tell you all about it in next week’s adventures…

Cheers, Salute, Prost, Gesondheid!

Sara Fowler
Winemaker
PEJU Winery
www.peju.com

Chardonnay at Trefethen Family Vineyards

We brought in our first Chardonnay of the season this morning at Trefethen Family Vineyards in the Oak Knoll District. The vineyard crew began picking the 1.26 acre block of Wente clone Chardonnay in the chilly morning hours. This particular clone has a lot of muscat character and had just reached the point where the berries were singing with flavor!

When the fruit arrived on the crushpad, the Trefethen family joined the crew in celebrating the start of the 2009 Harvest. Nothing like popping the cork on a bottle of sparkling wine at 8:30 in the morning! None for the forklift drivers, of course....

After loading the press with grapes, we headed back out to the vineyard to taste grapes and discuss harvest plans for the rest of the week. We have another Wente clone selection that is nearly ready. This one is called "Hens and Chicks" for its tendency to produce large and small berries on each cluster. We're also looking at some Dijon clone Chardonnay as well as some Pinot Noir for later this week.

Happy Harvest!

Jon Ruel

Trefethen Family Vineyards

Who needs a Refractometer when you've got Winery Dogs?

Going on his 10th harvest, Kodiak doesn't need to measure the Brix (or sugar) level, he can just smell it!

Delia Viader, who is the owner/winemaker at VIADER (and also my mother) was the one who discovered Kody proudly showing off his fresh catch of the day -- a ripe cluster of Cabernet Sauvignon -- during last year's 2008 harvest.

Half-way up Howell Mountain in Deer Park, our estate fruit is rapidly approaching full maturity. So quickly in fact, that my brother Alan, our vineyard manager and winemaker, had to cut his recent travel plans short and will be returning this Wednesday and expects to start picking first thing Thursday. He and his wife Mariela are currently in Utah representing our private bottling of "Robert Redford Reserve" Cabernet Sauvignon that we bottled specially for Sundance.

Hopefully Alan can get to the grapes before Kody does!

Warmly,

Janet Viader

sales & marketing at VIADER

Almost, Not Quite Yet In Calistoga

I want to be informative and tell you all about our harvesting, but, we aren't doing it yet!!! The bins are clean and being moved to the vineyards from which I purchase, the equipment is all prepped except for the final cleaning. The generator and forklift are primed and ready. I'm standing around like a 9 1/2 month pregnant woman waiting for the dang delivery....such is the life of a winemaker.

In the meantime, I continue to walk the vineyards, test the fruit, watch the weather, sell wine, hmm... all the things we do to keep busy while the grapes ripen.

I thought I'd share an integral part of my operation - Zoe, the wine dog. She meets and greets, leads folks up to the tasting room, has her own method of checking the grapes (not MY favorite method) and generally keeps me laughing.

To my brethren in this business - busy harvesting Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir - sleep is now allusive, I'll just rest until MY harvest starts!!!!!

Until next time, Laura

Musings From the Mountain

I’m sitting in my home office looking out my window at our 5-acre vineyard here on Diamond Mountain (see photo) and I admit I am having a hard time focusing on this harvest report. There is not a cloud to be found in the endless blue sky and the temperature is a perfect 85 degrees out. Did I also mention it is Friday and the start of the long Labor Day weekend? But I promised Joel, the Communications Manager for the Napa Valley Vintners, that I would get this blog done today. I feel like a school kid sitting in class rushing to finish my assignment as I watch the seconds tick by on the clock until the bell rings and the weekend begins.

You may be wondering where this is all going and why I haven’t mentioned harvest much yet. Here at Diamond Terrace we make Cabernet Sauvignon from our Diamond Mountain and Howell Mountain vineyards. Most of the mountain appellations in the Napa Valley harvest several weeks to even a month behind the vineyards on the valley floor. Our fruit has gone through veraison, the technical term for the fruit changing color from green to dark red, but we are far from harvesting. In the past it has not been unusual for the fruit to hang well into October and based on the health of our vine canopy and the mild summer weather we are having (see paragraph 1) it looks like we are headed in that direction again this year.

So with not much to report at this time I think it is safe to say my assignment is completed and I’m off to enjoy the start of a fun Labor Day weekend. The weather here is perfect (again see paragraph 1) so if you don’t live far it’s not to late to jump in the car and come for a visit. Most of the grapes are still on the vine and enjoying the perfect weather as well.

Maureen Taylor, Owner
Diamond Terrace

Dutch Henry Ziplocks and Grapes

Dutch Henry Brix Update for 9/4/09:

• Mt. Veeder Pinot Noir: 23.7 brix. Not Ready.
• St. Helena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon: 22.4 brix. Not Ready.
• Estate Tomatoes and Veggies: PERFECT!

Stay Away Thieving Birds

Mountain Harvest at Oakville Ranch Vineyards

chardonnay is ready to go
color of new mowed hay
acids mellow

young cabernet, first crop
sweet and full

tannins
first sampling done on entire ranch
thought we would be late
but the flavors are ahead of last year

tiny berries
cooling in the morning fog
stay away thieving birds

Phil Coturri – Vineyard Manager
Oakville Ranch Vineyard

NVV @ Whole Foods Napa

The Napa Valley Vintners are proud to be partnering with our local Whole Foods market. During alternating months Whole Food's Napa tasting bar will feature an exciting lineup of NVV member wineries.

Rhiannon Bernard, left, and Ann Pepi of Joel Gott Wines poured samples from 5-7PM on Thursday, September 3rd, as the inaugural winery in this new series. A nominal cost of $2 bought patrons a taste of five wines, including Joel Gott's newest wine, "Gott", a 2005 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon by his winemaker wife Sarah Gott.

Tasting Schedule
September 3 & 4th - Joel Gott Wines, 5-7PM, $2
September 10 &11th - Duckhorn Wine Company, 5-7PM, $2
September 17 & 18th - Heitz Cellars, 5-7PM, $2
September 24 & 25th - Newton Vineyard, 5-7PM, $2

Waitin' In the Blocks at Spring Mountain Vineyard

I feel like a sprinter in the blocks dealing with a series of false starts. We thought we’d be off and running on Tuesday, September 1^st. We tasted fruit and 'no go', not ready.

So off we went to taste again for a Thursday start. 'Ready, set and No' once again.

We tasted Sauvignon Blanc again this morning and...you guessed it...'Not ready'. OK starter, put your gun away.

We’re going to kick harvest off next Tuesday when we’re done with Labor Day and the grapes are finally ready to go.

Have a great holiday and we’ll see you early (very early) on Tuesday the 8^th to show you our first day of harvest.

P.S. Left to right in the photo are Ron Rosenbrand, SMV Vineyard Manager, me, and Leigh Meyering, Associate Winemaker

Spring Mountain Vineyard
Jac Cole, Winemaker

Dutch Henry has 09 Sauvignon Blanc in the Barn!

Yes, Dutch Henry has its first mule kicking in the stall. We successfully crushed our Pope Valley S. Blanc last Saturday (8/29/09). It is currently bubbling away in a refrigerated stainless tank. The cellar has been scrubbed and polished, the crusher and press work, and we have one varietal under our belt. Next up: our Estate Syrah in front of the winery. Probably end of next week. 100 F in the shade at the winery yesterday and it RAINED! That was a first for me and I’m a native Northern Californian of 40 something years.

Waiting and Working at Chappellet!

The signs of an upcoming harvest abound at Chappellet, located on Pritchard Hill in the eastern hills of the Napa Valley. Cellar workers are busy bees, cleaning and checking all of the equipment, and ensuring that the winery is ready for the onslaught of grapes that is right around the corner. The vineyard crew is making its final thinning passes, fine tuning the crop to ensure that it reaches the excellent potential that we all see in this 2009 growing year.

We are still at least a week away from bringing in our first varietal, Chenin Blanc (pictured). This will be our first Chenin harvest in five years at Chappellet and we are anxious to see what our newly replanted vineyard will give us. Our Chardonnay (from American Canyon and Oak Knoll) is approximately 2 weeks away, but the current warm weather could move that up a little. Our red grapes on the estate are about a week behind normal due to the cool growing season. Merlot and Malbec may see a September harvest, but the Cabernet is solidly a mid-late October baby this year.

The vineyards look great, the winery is ready to go and the staff is anxious to put another great year in the barrel here at Chappellet.

Cherry Picking the Ripe Fruit

The 2009 growing season has been ideal for our vineyards. The weather has been moderate to cool for the large part, with average crop size. While the majority of our harvest is a few weeks away, it is time for cherry picking! Imagine yourself looking at a cherry tree, some of the cherries are nice red and ripe, while others still have an edge of green and need more time to ripen...so you pick the red juicy cherries and enjoy the bright flavors. With experience and patience, that is exactly what our job is in the vineyards today.

We are in the vineyards every morning looking for the ripe fruit, and of course, our experience tells us what vineyards and varieties ripen early. We started harvest modestly last Friday with 5 tons of Sauvignon blanc, an early variety, from the St. Helena district. With the heat of the last weekend, a couple more cherries turned red, ripe and juicy....Wednesday we picked 18 tons of Viognier from the Carpy-Conolly Ranch in Rutherford...and this morning saw 10 tons of Sauvignon blanc from Yountmill Vineyard in Yountville. All the fruit is looking great, clean with much promise for flavorful wines and great numbers to boot. With all of the ripe fruit picked for now, I think we have cleared the weekend....which makes for a lot of happy faces with the crew.

We're Not Even Sampling Yet

While the grape trucks rumbling up and down Highway 29 signal the start of harvest for other wineries in the valley, our picking bins, sorting table, crusher/destemmer and press are all still tucked snuggly away in the storage room. As picking crews and cellar teams busy away at neighboring wineries, life at Paradigm rolls along at late summer’s languid pace. The vineyard will laze under a few more weeks of sunshine before harvest’s toils come knocking on our door.

Ripening, in the long version, is a complex physiological process that involves sugar transportation, ion transfer, respiratory catabolism of acids, and a bunch of other things that are definitely better explained in your high school biology textbook than they will be here. Ripening, in the short version, is the simple progression from tasting acidic, tannic and watery, to tasting concentrated, balanced, and well…ripe.

The Paradigm estate vineyard started veraison, the green-to-red color change shown by maturing red grapes, in late July. If we take a moment to glimpse into the evolutionary past of our good friend the grape vine, this visual cue evolved as means of flagging down a means of seed (thus gene) dispersal. Sending the maximum number of genes into the world is the end goal for nearly all life forms. But back to grapes – once the seeds are viable (able to pass the vine’s genes along in the form of a new plant), the seed chemically signals the grape’s skin that it’s time to turn color. Passing birds stop to nibble on the pretty red berries (suddenly quite visible against the green canopy), and never know they’ve fallen into the vine’s reproductive trap as they happily drop little grape genes all along the way to their next stop.

Shockingly, humans have pickier palates than do birds. While seed viability may have been completed with veraison, a tasty grape that will translate into a tasty wine is still a long ways off. Grapes starting veraison are tart, watery, and bitter. If you care to taste a berry at this point, one might find that Merlot tastes like broccoli stems and Cab is reminiscent of a non-spicy jalapeno, both with enamel-stripping acid levels and tannins that grate on your tongue in a way that you might not have a reference for unless you’ve ever gnawed on a banana peel.

As the grapes ripen, acids will slowly decrease as the sugar content increases, skin tannins grow softer and less bitter, and the overall flavors will phase out of the “green” category (broccoli, bell peppers, grass) and become more fruit-like (melon, peach, blackberries…). As we get closer to harvest, we’ll pull samples out of the different vineyard blocks in order to track chemical markers of maturity in our lab, but for now it really only requires heading out into the vineyard and tasting a couple berries to know that, for us, harvest is still a few weeks away.

Enjoy California Wine!

Napa Valley is heading to New York City from September 14-16 to celebrate and promote California Wine Month.

In addition to our events for the trade and media, we’re involved in a couple great consumer events, too. Here are the details:

California Wine Month Wine Dinner at
The Modern
Tuesday, September 15, 7:00 PM
Four courses
Nine wines
$150 per person (not incl. tax & tip)
Address: The Museum of Modern Art, 9 West 53rd Street (bet. 5th & 6th Aves.), NYC
Reservations: Call 212-408-6645

Join representatives from Napa Valley, Mendocino, Amador County, and Lodi for an exciting multi-regional wine dinner at The Modern. Learn about regions you know and love—as well as winegrowing areas that may be new to you. Enjoy great California wines paired with phenomenal food and hear from several of the vintners themselves. Kathleen Heitz Myers (Heitz Cellar), Su Hua Newton (Newton Vineyard), and Suzanne Groth (Groth Vineyards) will all be in attendance—as will their stellar Cabernets.

Napa Valley In-Store Tastings at New York-Area Retailers:

Gary's Wine & Marketplace
Monday, September 14, 4-7 PM
featuring Kathleen Heitz Myers (Heitz Cellar)
1308 Route 23 North
Wayne, NJ
FREE

Grande Harvest Wines
Tuesday, September 15, 4-6 PM
featuring Kathleen Heitz Myers (Heitz Cellar)
Graybar Passage, Grand Central Terminal
New York, NY
FREE

Morrell & Co.
Tuesday, September 15, 3:30-6 PM
featuring Suzanne Groth (Groth Vineyards)
1 Rockefeller Plaza
49th Street (Between 5th and 6th Aves.)
New York, NY
FREE

Sherry-Lehmann
Wednesday, September 16, 2-4 PM
featuring Suzanne Groth (Groth Vineyards)
505 Park Avenue
New York, NY
FREE

Union Square Wines
Saturday, September 26, 2-5 PM
140 4th Ave
New York, NY
FREE

De Gustibus Cooking School Class: THE NEXT GEMS OF THE NAPA VALLEY
with GARY FISCH, CEO/founder of Gary's Wine & Marketplace
Saturday, September 26, 2009
1:00 to 4:00 PM
De Gustibus Cooking School
151 West 34th Street, 8th Floor
$95
Gary Fisch, CEO/founder of three Gary's Wine & Marketplace stores in New Jersey, aka Wine Guy on Food Network's "Hot Off the Grill," will give a sneak preview of which Napa wines are next in line for stardom and cult status.

Or if you're traveling to northern California, here are some Napa Valley winery events in Napa Valley.

Harvest Preparations at Chateau Montelena

Well, it’s that time of year again…the decking has come off the crush pit, and we’ve dusted off the destemmers. The presses have rolled out of the warehouse and the shaker table is all bolted in place. The new barrels have all arrived and the grapes are getting sweeter by the day. Now how do all these puzzle pieces fit again? We’ll figure it out - not without a few surprises along the way I’m sure, but it’s the challenges that keep it interesting, right?

The crush season is upon us and the interns are in full force (see testimonial below) cleaning everything and anything they can get their scrubbies on – we wouldn’t have it any other way. Everything’s got to be bright an clean before the first grape hits the scale. Speaking of the grapes, they’re looking great! We’re expecting another excellent vintage and with more tonnage than last year. The Chardonnay crop should be about 115% of normal and the guestimates from the Estate suggest that we’ll have about 180 tons of Napa’s finest to work with this season, including the much anticipated first crop off of the replanted J-block. While we're on replants, we’ve got about 13 acres off-line this year that are in various stages of replant, and the second half of C-block is slated to come out after this harvest. What’s it all mean you say, well, it is all part of our master plan to produce the best possible grapes from this extraordinary vineyard, so as the production from the older plantings (1973 and 1974) declines we are gradually replanting those blocks to ensure that we have sufficient grape tonnage to ensure consistent production levels. But remember folks, this is farming, so check back to see what we actually get…

We expect to receive our first grapes – Chardonnay – in about 7 days, but that all depends on mother nature and what she has in store for the next week or so – any prognostications? The conditions down in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley where we grow most of our Chardonnay have been very good this season – a bit cooler than normal, but that’s good for Chard. No new growers this year, but we will have a few new (to us) clones to play with courtesy of an existing grower that T-budded over some Merlot to Chardonnay Dijon clones last year.

Aside from new Chardonnay clones, there is actually quite a bit of “new” here at the old Chateau. We have 9 new tanks in the cellar this year, a new basket press, and a few more new pieces of grape handling equipment. What’s with all the new you ask, well, what it boils down to is that all this new stuff is designed to do one or both of these two things: either make the wine better or make the job easier. This simple philosophy has deep roots here at Montelena and is in line with our growing philosophy as well: the right grape in the right place. All that to say that we are continuing to tweak and improve all aspects of what we do here in order to not just maintain, but improve upon the excellence expected from Chateau Montelena.

Check back in to see how everything plays out here at the top of the Napa Valley! One of our interns and I will be posting updates once a week (maybe more) as we progress through this harvest.

Cheers!

Cameron Parry

Winemaker

Chateau Montelena Winery

1429 Tubbs Lane

Calistoga, CA

www.montelena.com

Now here's an entry from Daniel Orrison - one of this year's interns here at Chateau Montelena:

Summer Harvest: Entry 1 9/1/2009

Montelena Monday:

My name is Daniel Orrison, though these days I more appropriately go by Intern, or Harvest Intern, Intern who almost flips the forklift four days into the job, etc. Yes, that is correct, I am one of the harvest interns at Chateau Montelena (or how I refer when meeting a young lady in the small city of Calistoga… “I am an apprentice to the winemaker at Montelena”). Jokes aside, this is a dream position. There is not a winery in the world I would rather work and a staff I would prefer to learn from.

In the following weeks you are going to hear MY story behind the 2009 Montelena harvest. Not your everyday recap, that I can promise, but the REAL side of a Napa wine harvest, from the eyes of 22-year-old kid who is crazy about wine and obsessed with new experience (a little too much some may say). I plan to document the ups and downs, highs and lows, and ins and outs of the entire adventure. Wherever that may take me…

But a little bit more about myself before we get started: I love wine – the style, art, culture, science, and tradition all sown into the subject. This love has taken me across the globe. Tasting in the south of France, sipping in South America, touring in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and has now landed me in the epicenter of the American Wine Trade – the Napa Valley. Which, appropriately, seems to be then most beautiful of all the regions in the world I have had the privilege to visit.

How I wish I could put the beauty of this area into words – the beauty of Napa Valley – the beauty of Calistoga. A place such as this remind you how pure and clean the world can be – how extraordinarily far the pleasures of thought and imagination can take you if you are only willing to dream! It really does seem quite perfect… I’d be willing to argue the only discomfort one experiences when visiting is in the realization of how tragic it is the likes of Van Gough or Monet will never get to the stories of these hills with their brush. That may be the tragic romantic in me… but who’s counting. We’re in wine country, right?

Now onto Chateau Montelena… From the instant you step foot on the property, winding your way down a charming path lined with Eucalyptus (and stumble upon the castle I now call home), a feeling of excitement surrounds you – a feeling of passion – a feeling of care, pride, and tradition. It’s amazing to see the level of excellence that radiates throughout the building. From top to bottom there is not a detail missed and it is because of this that the winery has remained among the World’s elite for so many years. If you could only see how excited I am sitting down to write this post, for it is a reminder of how special I foresee this harvest. Chills are running through me as we speak. Away from myself, though, and back to the quality that is Montelena… an area I feel has a great deal to do with then quality of young staff they employ (the Interns).

I live with two others in an amazing old farmhouse (hidden between rows of vines on Old Toll Road), owned by our boss, Bo Barrett. One is a Portuguese lad by the name of Ricardo. He has worked seven harvests in different places around the world. Him and I are becoming good friends. He has such a passion for wine. It is inspiring to watch him work are care for the grapes for his attention to detail is like nothing I haven ever seen. The other intern is a lovely young girl by the name of Janice. She has recently graduated from Cornell University, where she studied Viticulture and Enology. Another amazing young mind who knows farrrr too much about wine (compliment in these parts). But both are incredible people I look forward to taking this ride with.

So far life as an intern has been easy. Harvest is still a few weeks out as the summer’s temperature has been a bit cooler than usual and the grapes still need a few more weeks to ripen. The quality of fruit though looks to be outstanding. We can’t wait to get started! Until then… I hope this introduction treats you well. Much more to come. Much more to come.

Wine tasting this weekend? See you around the valley.

Cheers most sincerely,

Daniel

Blackbird Vineyards | Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley

As we conclude the last day of August 2009, the harvest moon is almost upon us, signalling the "beginning of the end" of summer and the slow creep of fall. This transition period is the most invigorating for Napa Valley vintners as the fruits of a year's labor come to fruition.

If the current weather patterns hold true, Blackbird Vineyards will harvest its Bordeaux grape varietals (Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon) in early October. Most of the winery's grape sources, including its estate vineyard in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley are located in the southern end of the Napa Valley, allowing for more moderate daytime temperatures. This will (hopefully) lead to greater balance in the fruit at harvest time with sugars, acids and physiological development all coming together. Mother nature will have the last comment here though...

Next posting, we will discuss the emerging wine program for Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley.

More to come...

Paul L. Leary

President

Blackbird Vineyards | Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley

Zahtila Vineyards Ramping Up for Harvest 2009

Zahtila Vineyards, located in Calistoga at the top of Napa Valley, is busy preparing for this year's harvest. We are permanently installing a propane based generator to provide power to all of the crushing equipment. Zahtila Vineyards was originally built as a residence, not enough to run a working winery. Each year we bring in a temporary generator, this year it's being made permanent.

Zahtila Vineyards purchases 90% of the fruit we use to make our delicious chardonnay, zinfandels and cabernets. This year, your author, Laura Zahtila, has been visiting the contracted growers in anticipation of this year's harvest. Cabernet from Rutherford for the Bentley program (the first vintage of 2007 to be released next year), Dry Creek zinfandel, Napa cabernet and Napa chardonnay growers are all a part of the extended Zahtila team.

More will be shared about those grapes as harvest gets closer. We are still a couple of weeks out from picking the first crop. Chardonnay and Dry Creek zin will be first!

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Oh baby don't it feel like heaven right now, Don't it feel like somethin' from a dream...The waiting is the hardest part, Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith, you take it to the heart, the waiting is the hardest part.

--Tom Petty

We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway...Anticipation, anticipation...is keepin' me waitin'

--Carly Simon

Harvest always comes a bit later for mountain top vineyards than on the valley floor. Cooler day time highs, and warmer night time lows produce Cabernets of intense color and structure, but on a very different time line. Many years I'm just getting started as other winemakers start their Thanksgiving vacation...which can create a bit of nervousness in a rainy year.

As a high altitude winemaker with a low altitude home address, patience becomes more than a virtue, but a keeper of sanity. I wake up to hear tractors starting up for night time harvesting, laying in my bed wondering..."maybe it's time to service the Kubota." Sometimes I'll walk out and watch their pickers for awhile, then go home and force myself back to sleep.

It looks like my waiting will be over soon. I do grow some valley floor Sauvignon Blanc which may come in the end of this week. I was walking that vineyard this morning and the flavors were really starting to show a lot of ripe melon, citrus, and gooseberry. I'm hoping the acid will drop a bit more in the next few days...only time will tell. After the Sauvignon Blanc comes in, there is often a bit of a lull for me...but that gives me time to get the Sauvignon Blanc juice settled, inoculated, and down to barrel to ferment. Another few weeks, then I can start thinking Merlot and Chardonnay.

Until next time,

Andrew Schweiger

Winemaker, Schweiger Vineyards

Pinot Noir at Trefethen Family Vineyards

Another warm day in the valley... it's already 85F at 10:00AM, having gone up a full 30 degrees since sunrise. This late season heat is sure to accelerate the ripening process after a relatively cool summer so far.

Here at Trefethen Family Vineyards, in addition to growing all the grapes for our estate wines, we also grow grapes for sale to about a dozen other Napa Valley wineries. These winery clients include a few sparkling wine producers and theirs are always the first grapes to come off. They pick at lower sugars to ensure great natural acidity.

We started the sparkling harvest last week and this morning we continue with a block of Pinot Noir going to Domaine Chandon. There's a lot of action in the vineyard right now but we'll be out of there by noon, before the heat really kicks in.

It will likely be another couple weeks before we begin harvest for our estate wines - with our ripest Chardonnay blocks still only around 20 brix. Having just finished bottling the 2008 white wines, that should give us just enough time to prepare the winery for the first load of grapes!

Merryvale continues harvesting Sauvignon Blanc

Harvest began for Merryvale on August 20th with Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Musque from Juliana Vineyards. Since then, we have also picked Juliana Vineyards Semillon, and additional Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Musque from the Oakville appellation, all crushed at Starmont. On average, we have been harvesting Sauvignon Blanc around 23 or 24 Brix and it has nice natural acidity. We are optimistic about the quality as the vines have shown beautiful melon, citrus, and floral flavors, and yields have been average or slightly below average. We will finish harvesting our warmer climate Sauvignon Blanc early next week, and two Oak Knoll blocks of SB will continue to ripen on the vines.

We anticipate beginning the harvest of Pinot noir at Stanly Ranch in Carneros near Labor Day. Some of our blocks of Chardonnay are also close.

We also have Merlot in Calistoga that is now at 23.5 Brix, with nice early berry flavor development. This block will likely begin the harvest at the Merryvale facility in St. Helena, and we also anticipate harvesting this near Labor Day.

Harvest has begun at a nice pace, with moderate weather. The forecast is for some warming this weekend, and then a return to average temperatures next week. Harvest will really kick into full gear for us after Labor Day, as we currently have Chardonnay, Pinot noir, Merlot and even some Cabernet between 20 and 23 Brix.

Cheers!

UNFILTERED: 50 Vintners Talk Harvest 2009

Crush is upon us! It is both an exciting and exhausting time of year for most folks in the wine business, especially those with production jobs. Our goal is to get you as close to the action as possible. A sort of fly-on-the-winery-wall point of view, so.....

Starting this week we have deputized 50 Napa Valley winery professionals as Harvest Reporters to upload their UNFILTERED impressions and experiences of the 2009 harvest season. Our reporters span the gamut. Winemakers are well-represented but we also have vineyard managers, hospitality and marketing staff, and operations managers sending updates. Participating wineries range from micro-producers with a few backyard vine to larger wineries utilizing fruit from throughout the valley. The blending of these individual stories should result in a complex and layered view of Napa Valley's winegrape harvest, just like the resulting wines of this legendary appellation.

We invite you to join us in this most energizing of annual experiences. And, of course, your comments and questions are welcome and encouraged!

Harvest 2009: Game On!

Harvest season is a contact sport. Game on!

If wine growing/making were a sport, this past week would have been the start of playoff season. The "regular season" typically begins in March for most varieties grown in Napa Valley, with bud break.

Sticking with the sports season analogy, you can think of bud break as tryouts where the crop of hopefuls make their intentions known. Some make it, some get cut. Strength training of the selected vine shoots constitutes the spring routine, progressing into the season opener: bloom. Bloom, typically in May for most of Napa Valley, is when the young grape clusters flower and things get a bit more serious, and vineyard folks start keeping score. A good bloom is akin to an impressive, winning-streak jump start. A good start gives you momentum and options. A bad start (foul weather, like high winds or rains) can interfere with pollination and cause poor fruit set, meaning that the vineyard team will need to run a tight ship the rest of the season to produce a profitable harvest. Veraison is the mid-season progress report, when the grapes color and analysts weigh in with opinions. And then, five or so months into the season we get to this past week...the first round of regional playoffs.

The sparkling wine houses always go early, as evidenced in this video. Close behind is Sauvignon Blanc, with reports from both Honig and St. Supery that they've begun receiving grapes. Over the next 2-4 weeks the other varietals will start coming in from the fields, too, as the season ramps up to a traditional state of semi-mayhem for most of September.

There you have it; harvest = playoffs. It's sleeves up, head down, dig deep and push hard time. You just have to love this time of year!

For Napa Valley vintage recaps and super-informative harvest charts going back to 1990, click here.

Vintner Office On Track With Vineyards

Oh, so many fun puns in that header...IF you know that the new NVV office is flanked by railroad tracks on one side and vineyards on the others. It is also a nod to the fact that our construction schedule is roughly mirroring the annual winegrape timeline: ground broke on restoration of the old Jackse Winery in March, before vine bloom, and is on schedule to complete by end of the year, relatively soon after most of this year's grape crop will have finished their tenure in fermentation tanks and moved to oak aging barrels.

Below, NVV Board of Directors tour the work in progress. Pictured left to right are: Rick Jones, Jones Family Vineyards; Paula Kornell, Oakville Ranch Vineyards; Kathleen Heitz Myers, Heitz Wine Cellars; Pat Stotesbery, Ladera Vineyards; Rachel Wyckoff, Auction Community Board Member; Ray Chadwick, Duckhorn Wine Company; Linda Reiff, Napa Valley Vintners; Bruce Cakebread, Cakebread Cellars.

The Five W's of Social Media

On Tuesday, August 13th, more than 200 winery owners and staff turned out for a half-day training on the growing importance of social media and the most popular tools of engagement.

An esteemed line-up of industry consultants and vintner practitioners contributed to the workshop, which was the third in a series of programs hosted by the NVV on the topic of social media. Thank you to our guest speakers, listed here in order of appearance:

• Paul Mabray, VinTank
• John Hingley, Crush Direct
• Jean DeLuca, Jean DeLuca Consulting
• Lisa Adams Walter, Adams Walter Communications
• Regina Weinstein, Honig Vineyards & Winery
• Caroline Shaw, Jackson Family Estates
• Judd Finkelstein, Judd's Hill
• Lesley Russell, St. Supery Vineyards & Winery
• Michael Wangbickler, Academy of Wine Communications (moderator)

Softball Bragging Rights

Woo Hoo! Slow-pitch softball was the excuse; beer, hotdogs, and friendship were the real reason for the 5th Annual Napa Valley Grapegrowers vs. Napa Valley Vintners Softball Challenge. Result? A good time had by all!

Click to see more pics.

Congratulations to the Vintners' pitcher and MVP Tom Bracamontes of Mi Sueno Winery, and to the rest of the NVV team:

• AJ Fairbanks, HDV
• Bob Torres, Trinchero Napa Valley
• Cante Swearingen, Viader Vineyards & Winery
• Hugh Davies, Schramsberg Vineyards
• Jackie Diaz, Joseph Phelps Vineyards
• Jeff McBride, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars
• Keith Hock, J Davies Vineyards
• Paula Schweiger, Schweiger Vineyards
• Peter Godoff, Castello di Amorosa
• Richard White, Mumm Napa
• Robert O'Malley, V Sattui Winery
• Sheryl Stillman, Sterling Vineyards
• Taylor Bartolucci, Madonna Estate

We Aim To Please, Responsibly

More than 65 winery tasting room and hospitality staff attended our ongoing "Responsible Beverage Service" (RBS) certification workshop on Thursday, July 30 at the Bardessono in Yountville. As part of the two-year RBS certification, attendees learned

Best practices for responsible beverage service

Tips for dealing with intoxicated guests

How to prevent service to minors.

The course -- taught by Jerry Jolly, former Director of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), who spent 31 years with the California ABC -- is part of the Napa Valley Vintners' broad effort to encourage sustainable business practices in the Napa Valley.