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October 2004
It's hard to believe that the 2004 harvest is over—we started picking on September 9th, and just finished the last of the Cabernet grapes on October 16th. For most Sonoma County vineyards, including ours, it was the earliest season ever. Of course, we were hoping that the harvest would be late this year because our new winery was not yet complete, but Mother Nature had other ideas! We survived only because of the tremendous help from our friends and family: Vincent's brother and sister, Joe and Mary; our old friends John, Shannon, and Mitch; along with our new friends Pam, Jerry, Shelia, and Dave. If you'd like to volunteer at a future harvest, just drop us a line and we'll put you "on the list".
The 2004 wines definitely follow our motto "quality over quantity". The growing season was near perfect with early bloom and even summer heat—but because last spring (2003) was very cold and wet, this year's crop was very light (the number of buds on a grapevine are determined by the prior year's sunlight). We also religiously followed a watering strategy this year which made our individual grape berries smaller, but much more flavorful. The quality, especially in the Cabernet, more than makes up for the 30% loss in grape tonnage. We're looking forward the wines from this ideal vintage as they mature over the next few years.
The most exciting aspect of this year's harvest was doing the crush at our own winery! Aside from being able to control quality ourselves, our two "unique ideas" for processing the grapes turned out to be winners. First, our sorting process (which we "borrowed" from the French, but is not widely used in the New World)—sorting out the "undesireables" after the grapes have been destemmed—left us with nothing but perfect grapes going into the wine. Second, our high-tech pneumatic basket press (which is relatively rare since most presses are bladder-style) really delivered fabulous press wine (the wine extracted from the skins and seeds left over at the end of fermentation).
In each newsletter, we feature a member of our extended family as our Wine Lover of the Month. This month, we'd like you to meet Sylvia.
On a final note, our 2002 Paolo's Vineyard Syrah has been released—order now to ensure your allocation!
Ciao!
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