The last lot of grapes are in!! And it's Las Madres...

The second half of our Las Madres Syrah (the last batch of grapes we'll receive this year) came in today, and it's now de-stemmed and tucked-in nicely for the evening, cold-soaking at 58 degrees.

Inital sugar numbers look like 25 brix on the hydrometer and 23.5 on the refractometer -- though this will soak up some more over the next couple of days.

We sure lucked into our Las Madres Syrah this year. Last year we managed 3 barrels worth, but up until about a month ago it looked like we might only get one or two if we were lucky. This was worrisome, given that this Syrah is shaping up to be one of the banner wines of our '04 vintage.

But a stellar growing season in Carneros led to higher yields than expected. I've heard many growers notice that yields were unexpectedly up 20-30%. This has let to many winerys scrambling to find barrels. In fact Brian Loring was short 100 barrels! Regardless, we benefitted from the extra fruit- ultimately securing 4 tons of grapes--two this week and two last week--enough grapes for roughly eight barrels.

While our pocket book is overwhelmed, we couldn't be happier -- the grapes taste fantastic, and the extra month of hang-time (over last year's) should yield deep, rich flavours, with deep complexity. At least that's the goal!