Harvest Report: Week 7- Trends Emerge

As the harvest continues, trends are emerging. St. Helena Star's 7th Week Harvest Report, has some great insights:

• Ripeness has evened out thanks to the weather.
• As we begin to press the Pinot Noir, we’re finding very spicy, exotic flavors from the young wine. The Pinot Noir has very good phenolic extraction.
• ..looks as if we’ll pick the whole mountain in the next 10 days. All the grape varetials are ready almost at once due to the hot weather.
• More and more fruit is beginning to shrivel due to the heat and yet maturity in all vineyards is not there yet, while sugar levels are in some vineyards are well over 25 Brix. Winemakers have the dilemma of picking or waiting to see if the fruit will become more mature. We’re continuing to irrigate to try and help the vines maintain their ability to mature without shutting down. Cool weather would be the best thing to help allow time for the vines to mature the fruit
• It’s been one of the hottest Septembers that we can remember. It reminds us of harvests like 1984 and ‘86. There is dehydration in the fruit across all varieties. But you have to, when going through the vineyard, taste the fruit on the non-afternoon exposure side. That’s where you can determine if the fruit is truly ripe. If you go out in ‘90 degree weather, the tendency is to panic and pick...We’re looking at the vines more to see if they are starting to defoliate (drop leaves). If they’re looking strong and healthy, let it ride.

Mike Officer, winemaker for Carlisle, posted on the West Coast Wine Network:

...this vintage is particularly challenging in regards to sugar. Weather at bloom and veraison was erratic. No rain but lots of cool temps and strong north to northwest winds. Both bloom and veraison periods seemed very protracted. Hence, there's a fair amount of variability within clusters. Although September was quite warm leading to a big push in sugars, flavors seem to be lagging. This seems to be a year in which you need to tolerate higher sugars to get decent flavors. Since producers now understand that flavors are the name of the game, they're waiting. But things have cooled down a bit perhaps we can get some additional hang time without a big rise in sugars. I know it's nerve racking (I have 20 tons of Russian River zin still hanging at a measly 22 brix) but it's what we have to do to make tasty wine.