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2008-We
are currently in the process of becoming certified organic
producers. Current Vineyard Report- September 18, 2007 Spring-Summer 2007 2006 Harvest Report  WINE
GROWING PHILOSOPHYWe strongly believe that the character of quality wine begins in the vineyard. Our goal is healthy vines in healthy soil...fine winemaking from the ground up. We assess each vine for vigor every year, carefully pruning to allow the vine to produce its optimal crop. We plant cover crops in the fall to prevent erosion and enhance fertility, grinding up the clippings and prunings in the spring and incorporating them back into the soil. During the growing season we remove weeds mechanically to minimize the use of herbicide and reduce the need for additional water. We are proud that we have not used insecticides on producing vines in over 30 years. We revisit each block many times a season, removing shoots, trimming off excess fruit and training the vines to maximize the interception of sunlight. By hand, we remove foliage around the grape clusters to increase air flow and prevent mildew and rot, and harvest by hand at the peak of each row’s physiological maturity. We pick in the early morning, while the grapes are still very cool. We pick each varietal when the sugars and acids are in ideal balance, and keep temperatures constant to preserve that balance. The trip from vine row to winery is less than five minutes, so the juice is pressed out before the grapes have a chance to warm. We don’t burn fossil fuels trucking fruit for miles and then consume power trying to regain appropriate temperatures. We perform most of the winery operations by hand and never rush the aging, allowing each varietal an optimal rest in both barrel and bottle before releasing our finished wines. This allows us to produce rich flavorful, well-balanced wines with crisp fruit cradled in a light touch of oak. Muir-Hanna wines need no specialized ritual after purchase – just draw the cork, enjoy, and join us in celebrating our legacy. The Vineyard Report 2007 Harvest Update- 18 September 2007 We began harvesting chardonnay from the John Muir Hanna Vyd on August 31, 12 days earlier than last year. We crushed 6 tons for our 07 Chardonnay with the remaining going to Chateau Montelena. We crushed another 4 tons from Orchard Vyds on 4 Sep. The merlot was ready to go on 5 Sep, 22 days earlier than last year. We harvested a combined 11 tons from our original and newest block. The petit verdot and cabernet franc at the John Muir Hanna Vyd are near 24ºbrix but not quite ripe. The new cab franc at Bill and Claudia’s vyd is only at 21.6ºbrix and the new cabernet sauvignon at Orchard Vyds is at 20.1º. The Particelli Vyd cabernet is close to 25º and nearly ready to pick. We have harvested nearly 270 tons so far with only about 55 tons to complete. The weather has been superb. We had only one day over 100º in July and August was very mild until the very end when we had 3 days over !00º. The first three days of September were in the mid to upper 90’s but we are back to the 80º-90º range with lows in the upper 40’s to low 50’s. There is a threat of rain and below normal temperatures in the next few days so that will dramatically slow the ripening process. Spring-Summer 2007 Well, I certainly am behind the 8-ball this year since I haven’t written since a brief note in January. So, I’ll try to catch you up in a hurry. WINTER- It was colder than normal in December – more like I remember growing up with lots of ice on the animals’ water dishes and the puddles. The puddles would have been frozen if there had been any but rainfall was below normal by 40%. It was plentiful enough, and distributed evenly enough, to allow the cover crops to grow lushly, and to fill the root zone. I don’t think much got down to the water table.
SUMMER – Mild with no significant heat extremes. Morning fog clearing between 10-11AM. Sunny with light breezes in the afternoon. Are we talking perfect ripening weather or what? You may remember talk of the prolonged hot spell in inland CA in June and July? It didn’t happen here. From June 1 to Aug 1 this year we have had 3 days over 100º and 26 days over 90º. Our mean low temperature was over 50º (52.7º) only in July. Compare to last year with 11 days over 100º, 28 days over 90º, and June, July, and August with mean minimums over 60º. There are those already predicting the “vintage of the century”. In truth, few of us can remember such a benign growing season. HARVEST UPDATE – I took samples to check sugars on Monday, August 13. The pinot noir was at 22.1º, and the chardonnays ranged from 19.5º to 17.7º. I think we will pick pinot by the end of next week and start the chardonnay in the first week of September. Our crop levels look to be average or a little better in the chardonnay, a bit below average in the pinot, and about average for the merlot, cabernet, cabernet franc and petit verdot. The pinot and chardonnay actually began verasion about the 4th of July. So we started early, bloomed early, and have been ripening slowly. If the weather continues its current trend the harvest season will slowly creep back towards normal. 2006-2007 WINTER UPDATE
We began pruning the pinot noir on Dec 4 and have since completed
about 40% of our total pruning. Very few lost days due to
rain account for the speed. We should finish the pruning
by the end of February and hopefully budbreak will not occur until
early March. HARVEST REPORT 2006 We began harvest on Sep 12 by picking the young block of the John Muir Hanna vineyard for delivery to Chateau Montelena. On Sept. 15 we picked 5 tons of pinot noir to produce our Alpenglow. Our chardonnay this year came from the JMH vineyard (4.4 tons on Sep 20) and Orchard Vyd (4.04 ton on Sep 26). We picked our merlot on Sept. 27 followed by petit verdot and cab franc in early October. We picked the 99 Vine Primitivo (zinfandel) on October 22 with the help of Trish and Mark from our Wine Club. The whole family was involved including our grandsons, Colton, Trenton, and Gino (and their parents). After picking we had lunch on the deck overlooking the vineyard then headed up to the John Hanna property to crush the fruit and start the winemaking process. A great time was had by all. Overall,fruit quality was excellent. We got mature, ripe flavors at slightly lower sugar levels than the previous few years. This equates to more elegant wines, a bit softer on the pallet but with full, lush fruit flavors. ~ Top ~ |
SPRING – In
contrast to the cold winter, spring was mild. The chardonnay
and pinot noir buds were pushing out by the first of March. There
was very little rain during the spring and night time temperatures
were never low enough to require frost protection. Bloom
occurred about three weeks earlier than last year so we planned
for an early harvest assuming a normal summer (What is normal in
climatology?) Because of the lack of rain, fungal pressure
was low.
Anyway,
back to the report. The weather was cooler than normal in
December with three days going below 30ºF for at least 8 hours
each night. We had a total of 4 ½ inches of rain spread
over the month so there has been very little run-off.