[ August 26 | September 16 ]
September 16, 2002 Harvest is picture perfect - cool fall mornings and warm afternoons - great for the wine harvest and great for football.
We started on September 10 by harvesting Merlot in the morning and Chardonnay in the afternoon. Continued with Chardonnay on the eleventh, but took Thursday off because the sugars were 23.7°Brix instead of 24+° Brix. Harvested Chardonnay Friday, Saturday and finished Sunday afternoon under cool afternoon conditions. Even with Phylloxera in the vineyard the Chardonnay harvest is up 10% over 2001.
The Merlot smelled great going through the stemmer-crusher, is just finishing fermentation and will be pressed tomorrow. It appears to have good color and flavors - so far so good. Yield is down 25% from 2001.
The Chardonnay will average out at over 24°Brix, the grapes seemed to have good flavor and the seeds are certainly brown. The first couple of tanks Chardonnay are now fermenting after settling for two days at 40°F.
This morning we move into the Riesling. Picking is slow, the clusters are much smaller than in the Merlot and Chardonnay.
August 26, 2002 It appears that our harvest will begin this year on September 11. Our earliest block of Chardonnay, which we call Cooks Flat Chardonnay, was 20.5 degrees brix on Monday, August 26. Our target for harvesting is 24+ degrees brix. I generally use a 1.5 degree brix change per week so that would indicate 2.3 weeks to go for this block of Chardonnay.
While total rainfall for this year was normal, the distribution of the rain was not. There was little rain from mid-January on, but there was a good two-inch soaking at the end of March. July and August have both been much cooler than normal, which slows down harvest. The week of August 26 is supposed to warm up some. This cool weather is good for wine quality, but bad for the physique of us growers.
It appears that crop size is larger than usual in the Chardonnay. The Cabernet Sauvignon looks normal and the Riesling seems smaller. There's an old saying that I like: "Big crops get bigger, and little crops get littler." Only after harvesting are we sure of the tonnage.
Driving through the Valley it appears to me that many vineyards are looking very stressed. Two possible reasons; the first is that the vines are running out of water and the second is because of the very cool weather. The vines have been tricked into thinking it's more like October than late August. I've also seen very uneven ripening on red varieties - that's not good.
Summary: It appears to be an excellent year for Napa Valley wine, but like the man who was asked how it was going at the 20th floor after he jumped off the 50th floor: "So far, so good."
Stuart Smith
|
