Harvest  1999  October 30, 1999

Feeling smug and lucky.

All fruit in without any real rain, except the late harvest pinot gris and riesling, where we want some rain to encourage partial botrytis.

Now we need some sun to grow the noble rot.

We've been "dropping" pinot noir fermentors, draining wine to tank, then pressing the remaining pomace to give "press" wine, which is handled as a separate cuvee. Only our last two large stainless steel fermentor lots and small experimental batches remain and they will be removed to settling tank and then barrel in the next two days.

Wine color and flavors are deeply saturated, amazing aromas blanketing the cellar while filling new barrels. It will be an interesting competition between 1998 and 1999 for superiority, or at least difference.

White barrels are fermenting vigorously, sometimes foaming like beer at the bung hole, leaving the cellar yeasty and heady with CO2.

We racked last year's Ian's Reserve Chardonnay this week--off lees on which it has rested for the last year. We'll take it to tank for bottling in the next two weeks, once harvest work is over. An amazing wine. Rich, full fruit with structure in the mode of fine chablis and white burgundies. Our best yet.

Everyone on the harvest crew has had one day off--a relief, but only making everyone realize the fatigue and want more time off. Soon, the receding workload will be strangely boring and people will head to visit other cellars in the valley, tasting wines only investigated at restaurants so far.

As a group, we will take a trip for R&R--last year we did Seattle, the year before the Oregon coast. Once the pinot gris/riesling is in, and I'm back from a quick trip to DC, we go to celebrate the end.

Harry