Monday, August 18, 2014

2014 Harvest is Just Around the Corner!

At the winery and Estate Vineyard we are getting ready for harvest. With all the heat this year, we expect harvest to be earlier than normal so we are busy getting prepared.

https://www.woodwardcanyon.com/visiting/We have been seeing veraison in our Estate Vineyard for several weeks now. Veraison is the term used to describe the time when grapes change their color and begin the ripening process. We see red wine grapes turning from green to a pinkish-mauve color and eventually to a dark purple. The process is harder to see with white wine grapes, but they turn from green to a more yellowish color, and the skins transition from opaque to translucent. It's an exciting time in the vineyards because we know that harvest is not far off. Soon Rick and Kevin will be walking the vineyards weekly, tasting the berries and then bringing in bucket-fulls of samples to be tasted and evaluated for sweetness, acidity, tannin, and overall flavor development. These evaluations are how we decide when the fruit is ready to be picked.

We have also started receiving barrels to the winery. Each year we buy a certain amount of new barrels. These barrels all come from France and typically arrive starting in mid to late summer. This is also the time when we pull our old, empty barrels our of storage and begin the process of cleaning them and checking for leaks.

https://www.woodwardcanyon.com/visiting/The next step is cleaning. Cleaning, cleaning cleaning! The cellar crew has started washing all of the bins we use to put the grapes in as they are picked and transported back to the winery. Next will be cleaning all the winemaking equipment - sorting table, crusher-destemer, hoses, presses, tanks, pumps, and other tools.

One of the last things we do before harvest is finish all of our bottling for the year. The barrels and tank space are needed for the upcoming harvest. We just wrapped up our bottling this past week with the last of the 2012 red wines.

https://www.woodwardcanyon.com/visiting/If this heat continues, we should be harvesting our Estate sauvignon blanc by the end of this month. Then begins two months of long days and hard work. But we love it! And it's all worth it when we get to meet a wine buyer from Tokyo who loves our 2011 Old Vines and recommends it to his guests or we meet a customer in the tasting room who can't wait until we release our next vintage of barbera.

Swing by the tasting room this fall to get a feel for what all the harvest excitement is about. We'll have daily updates in the tasting room about what's being crushed, pumped, and pressed in the cellar!