Weather  
Today

Who cares? We're done. Gorgeous Fall days through yesterday, and now some light rain has set in.

Friday was our last day of Harvest (excluding our late-hung Riesling, which is not due in until end of the month). A total of 0.40 inches rain during Harvest. We need say no more.

Harvest Scorecard:
Total: 218 tons (96% of forecast)

Pinot noir: 122 tons (96% of forecast)
Pinot gris: 45 tons (79% of forecast)
Chardonnay: 42 tons (124% of forecast)
Gamay noir: 3 tons (67% of forecast)
Pinot blanc: 6 tons (213% of forecast)

Riesling, showing some Botrytis and bird netting

Harvest  2001 October 21 , 2001

We Can Now Say Four-in-a-Row

	Final Harvest Crew Photo

Even though I refuse to prognosticate on the quality of a vintage, we can now safely say that, unless we screw it up in the winery, 2001 is an excellent vintage, the fourth in a row. It's all in the winery, most still cold soaking or just beginning fermentation, but some already in barrel also.

Whose Shoes are Whose?

The weather was dry in very large part, with only one lot (Ridgecrest Babies Pommard) seeing any rain on harvest day.

The vineyards' budbreak, bloom, and growing season was perfectly normal.

Crop set was ample enough to drop fruit in crop thinning to specified levels, which we hit very closely.

Only a minor amount of disease (botrytis) was present at one of our vineyards.

We couldn't have asked any more of Mother Nature. But why four in a row? It almost makes you wonder, in a paranoid sort of way, what we'll have to pay for this later or whether this is the beginning of our view of Global Warming that will make us a California rather than cool climate, searching for the best new Cabernet clones!

Paranoia aside, we should be grateful. And we are!

Stainless Geometrics of Tank and Destemmer		Cheryl and Wynne, Post-processing Cleanup

Although Harvest is over in the vineyard, except for Riesling, we have plenty of activity for the next 2-3 weeks.

• We have 20 or more fermentations to precisely guide through their cold soak, native yeast population growth, heat-up and ramping of temperatures to key set points, feeding, and completion to dryness and flavorfulness, including post macerations if required.
• We have tank drainings, pressings, settling, barreling down and barrel room building yet to complete for all of these ferments.
• We have just innoculated our Chardonnay and Pinot gris barrels and tank.
• We have Riesling to pick and press and begin fermentation.
• And then, when all of this is over, we get to return to bottling about a month from now, with the 2000 Ridgecrest Pinot noir and 2000 Ian's Reserve.

And then perhaps we can rest and enjoy holidays.