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Let’s Talk Grapes

Since I haven’t written a whole lot about grapes yet this year, I figured that might be a good starting point for this blog. As many of you know, the last couple of harvests have been a challenge mainly due to the “out of the norm” weather patterns we have experienced. Last harvest we experienced a late frost in April followed by a mild summer and some early rains. All of which led to our latest harvest ever and some of the smallest yields we have produced. Keep in mind, the quality of the fruit was very high, there just wasn’t a whole lot of it.

This year we seem to be on track for a fairly average harvest, much bigger than last year but not huge. Throughout our different vineyards the clusters are healthy and the quality at this point is looking very good. There is some lingering damage from last year’s frost but overall we are looking to have a good quality harvest in 2012. One factor that has really helped is the warm weather, not the hot weather but warm. So far this summer has been much warmer than the past couple years and the grapes really need the heat to ripen. There was a week of extreme heat that we could have done without but you just gotta roll with the punches!

One vineyard we continue to get more and more excited about is our Whale Rock Vineyard on the West Side just down the road from our tasting room. The fruit is getting better and better each year and the wines produced from this vineyard have been very impressive to date. When I spoke to Niels he seemed to be very pleased about the progress of the Whale Rock Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio, which makes me all the more excited for the harvest of 2012.

When you’ve been in the business as long as we have you learn to adapt to the ups and downs and be thankful for what you have when you have it. Being at the whims of Mother Nature can be challenging but then again what fun is life without a good challenge?

Till Next Time,

Cheers,

Luke