Drink more pinot!
This morning, we are picking our block of 115, which will be the first Pinot to go to Domaine Serene. We’re off and running, weather is beautiful, and everyone looks happy to be underway. Here’s pix of the first row of fruit to go, on the western end of “le bump.”
I’m off to the winery to clean the fermenters. We will probably start cold soaking fruit tomorrow or the next day!
We’ve (well, “we” in a broad sense - thank you Joel) planted 4 short rows of Riesling right in front of the house for David’s personal winemaking itch.
Brian O’Donnell at Belle Pente, who makes fantastic wine right down the road, has been growing and vinifying delicious Riesling for years. (Not to mention Pinot!) We’re hoping that our own version will have similar flavor characteristics, since it has similar soil, altitude, exposure, and spacing. Until the late 90’s, we had not had the opportunity to taste great Riesling, either European or domestic. Mmm, it can be mighty tasty.
Beth gave me a hard time for featuring only the chardonnay in yesterday’s post, so here is an equally tasteful cheesecake photo of our 115, which Tony tells us is bound for the winery tomorrow.
This cluster is pretty typical this year; you can see that it got cool and wet right around the time that the fruit was setting, so we’ve got lots of size variation. Their flavor is super and you can see that the plant is undergoing senescence, so everything indicates another tasty vintage. Oh, and the long-term weather reports are getting better!
Our fingers are crossed for a Tuesday start - flavors are developing and the weather is cooperating. The fruit is also particularly beautiful on the vine this year; we will hope that this is also true in the bottle.
The weather this fall has been quite cool already, although the days have been sunny and beautiful. Long term forecasts make it look as though periodic weather systems may make harvest decisions challenging for Willamette Valley winemakers this year, but you never know until it is over. This is when we are glad to leave picking decisions to others!
