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Vineyard

A collection of 408 posts

Why you trellis Syrah

So, I was out taking some archival pictures this morning of the face of the winery that will soon disappear as we start the construction on our winery expansion (more on this in the next few weeks). We're building on the east side of our winery: the side

Enjoying fall foliage while putting the vineyard to bed

This is a deceptively quiet time of year. We aren't harvesting any more, but we're still pressing off some red lots in the cellar and only a few select lots have actually finished fermentation. In the vineyard, we're doing anything we can to help

Harvest 2009 Evaluation and Recap

The 2009 harvest is done. In the barn. Finally. At 64 days (beginning September 1st and ending November 3rd) it was our second-longest harvest this decade. The only longer harvest, 2004, also saw the end of the harvest delayed by rain. The weather during harvest was challenging, to say

October 13-14 Pacific Storm Recap and Assessment

So, we're picking up the pieces at Tablas Creek after a storm that dropped an amazing 9.6 inches of rain on us in a little more than 24 hours. To try to contextualize how unusual this storm was for us: * This is more than half the rainfall

A truly scary weather forecast

We've been fortunate with our weather during harvest for the last four years. Each year starting with 2005, whatever the conditions during the spring and summer, we've had beautiful autumns, without serious heat spikes and without any significant rain. That's one of the major

Harvest, Week of September 28th: A Change in the Weather and Worries about Yields

If you've been following our 2009 harvest report, you'll know that we'd been hoping that the vintage would turn out to be a little more plentiful than the last two drought-reduced crops. Perhaps this was wishful thinking, given our third-consecutive below-average

Harvest, Week of September 21st

The weather did indeed heat up. It has topped out around 102 most of this week, and is forecast to stay hot through the weekend (and then cool down). This heat wave has been a touch gentler than the forecasts were predicting, which is a good thing. And this late

Harvest, Week of September 14th

We've (finally!) started harvesting our reds. We are bringing in Syrah today, and expecting about 10 tons. The fruit looks tremendous: low pH (around 3.35), good sugars (around 25 Brix) and excellent flavors. It seems to me that the grapes have lots of texture and solids rather

Harvest 2009 Begins... Slowly

It's clear at this point that it's going to be a long harvest. We picked our first grapes early last week (September 1st): Viognier from the top of the tallest hill on the property -- typically the first part of the vineyard we harvest -- and Roussanne for

Veraison 2009

It's always exciting when we see the first signs of veraison in the vineyard. The red grapes start to soften and turn red, while the white grapes start softening and add a little yellow to their green tone. It typically marks a point about six weeks from the