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Harvest 2001


	The Final Harvest Crew

	Harvest Reports

If human nature has dictated we remember 2001 for dastardly actions, Mother Nature is doing her darndest to give positive reasons to remember the year. For the fourth year in a row fruit has been harvested without significant rain or disease, and with concentration and ripeness that should give us great wines.

Harvest began September 28 and ended October 26, with only 0.40"of rain during the critical pre-riesling period (only 0.96" in September and October combined up to the 19th), despite repeated Cassandran warnings of deluges, and an average high temperature of 70°.

In general, the harvest resembles 1998 in softness and ripeness, with acids as low or lower than that year and a sweet core of fruit.

Pinot noir color extraction is excellent, flavors at harvest were full and almost ideal, even on those picked a day or two early to dodge rumored rains, which never materialized.
Crop yields for Pinot noir were perfectly set at 2.25 tons per acre at Corral Creek, from which we took more for ourselves this year than in past years; 2.66 tons per acre at Stoller; and 2.19 tons per acre at Ridgecrest. Pinot noir averaged 2.27 tons per acre and is up slightly (16 tons and 1100 cases potential, for a total of 122 tons and 7600 cases), largely due to custom crush for the new Stoller Vineyards cuvee.
Pinot gris looks ripe and intense with a yield of 2.26 tons per acre, with volume slightly below last year.
Chardonnay is fully ripe and flavorful, and is of equal volume (42 tons at 2.77 tons per acre, for 2600 cases) to Pinot gris (44.5 tons, for 2800 cases).



	John Wallace Pneumatically Punching down 8-ton Fermentors


	Mike and Caroline Loading Press with Pinot Gris


	Lots of Pinot Noir at the Scale

Total volume for this harvest is 221 tons (13,900 case equivalent), harvested off of 90 acres. As with 1998 and 2000, all three vineyards performed exceptionally, with stellar lots appearing from all three, even from young fruit.

Pinot noir pre-soaks have been exceptionally long and resulting extractions are deep, but supple and fine-grained. Cheryl and I have played experimentally in this vintage with methods to obtain reliably either end of the extraction spectrum, silky or tough, both being legitimate reflections of Pinot noir.

The harvest crew was exceptional this year, with more full-time contributors from the Southern Hemisphere than in years past.

John Wallace, winemaker at New Zealand's Chard Farm, helped Cheryl and Michael orchestrate tasks on the floor; Mike Eyres, a bright, young assistant at our friends' Pegasus Bay in NZ; Pamela Estay, from Chile's Vina Morande, with whom we traded language schooling; and,Victoria Watson, another Lincoln grad, from NZ's Central Otago region who most recently came from duty in UK marketing wars.

Great, almost full-time help also came from Mark Rosenstein, John Matzinger, Steven Jackson, and Nelle Bauer, most from other states and with the misconception they could come to Oregon for Harvest to get moisture for their complexions. Sorry, not this year!