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Vineyard

A collection of 414 posts

Terroir, Then and Now

By Robert Haas Recently, along with Randall Grahm, Neal Rosenthal and Alice Feiring, I participated in a seminar at the Santa Fe Wine and Chile Festival on the subject of wine quality entitled, “The Winemaker, the Owner, the Merchant and the Author”. Greg O’Byrne, maestro of the festival, chose

Harvest, Weeks of September 22nd and 29th

After what seemed like weeks of waiting, all of a sudden most of the vineyard is ready to pick. Last week, we focused on whites and picked the rest of the Viognier, most of the rest of the Grenache Blanc, and the Picpoul Blanc (we also picked the first of

Harvest, Week of September 15th: Watching and Waiting

Last week saw continued moderate temperatures, with most days peaking in the lower 80s and nights in the 40s. This is perfect ripening weather... as long as you're not in a hurry. The grapes are gradually accumulating sugars, and the cold nights mean that acids are remaining intense.

Some nice photos of ripening Mourvèdre

We're not harvesting today, but I took a walk through the vineyard to see the state of things. We'll be bringing in more Syrah, our Marsanne, and perhaps starting the Grenache and Roussanne next week, but there is a lot more of the vineyard that is

A Symposium on Roussanne (AKA three days spent with an infuriating, unpredictable, enticing, lovely grape)

Don't be fooled by this Roussanne cluster's innocuous appearance. It's a relentlessly challenging grape. Last month we hosted a producers-only symposium on Roussanne. Roussanne has tremendous potential, and at its best makes wines with richness, striking minerality, ageability, and balance. Robert Parker has

Harvest 2008 (Week of September 8th): Viognier, Syrah, Vermentino, and Chardonnay

After a hot stretch in late August and the first few days of September caused several varietals to race toward ripeness simultaneously, last week saw more moderate temperatures and a much slower harvest pace than we'd feared. We actually had a few foggy mornings out at the vineyard

Harvest 2008 Begins!

Well, we've finally begun this year's harvest. Yesterday and today, we've been harvesting our Viognier, which as usual is our first varietal in the cellar. 2008's harvest started about a week later than the 2007 harvest did, consistent with a slightly later

Veraison 2008 Photos of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre and Counoise

We're seeing veraison in most of our red varieties. Our timing is nearly identical to last year, when I wrote my post on Veraison on July 27th. Veraison (sometimes anglicized to verasion and pronounced vuh-rey-zhun) is the time of year when berries stop increasing in size

July Vineyard Photo Album

After a couple of weeks of seasonably warm weather (days in the 90s or low 100s and nights in the 50s) we had a break in the heat from a cut-off low and a resulting deep marine layer. Sunday and Monday we had fog in the morning, breezy, cool

Not an Easy Life...

When I was out the other day taking the photos of the strange smoky weather, I hiked up to the new block of vines to the extreme western edge of the property. We planted about 6 new acres here earlier this month, divided fairly equally between Grenache Blanc, Vermentino, and