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Harvest Fest 2011

If any of you were at the Harvest Festival this past weekend, I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say that it was an absolute blast! So many happy people everywhere I turned and such a good atmosphere. Not to mention, we had just about perfect weather. Nice and warm with clear skies and little to no wind.

We kicked off the 2011 Harvest Fest at Castoro this year with a Friday night “Barefoot Barrels Bash” dinner catered by local favorite, Thomas Hill Organics. The food was amazing to say the least and the wine wasn’t too bad either! We were also lucky enough to be serenaded by the Barflyz, a group with members from the Steve Miller Band. All in all it was a great way to kick off this festive weekend.

On Saturday and Sunday the grape stomping continued along with live music by Soul Sauce (they were really fun). It was really great to meet a bunch of new people and see lots of familiar faces from over the years. One of the biggest hits over the weekend was definitely the barrel tasting. It’s really exciting to try wine straight from the barrel for a couple of reasons. First of all, it looks pretty darn cool, and second of all you get a hint of what’s to come and what the aging process is like for different wines. I was personally very impressed with the upcoming Zinfandel Zinfusion and the Whale Rock Pinot Noir, which is a first for us from that vineyard. Another really fun wine from the barrel was the 2011 Viognier, which is still fermenting as it was only picked about a month ago. This one really caught people off guard, as it was cloudy in color and very fruity on the nose. Trying the Viognier like that has gotten me very excited to try the finished product.

All in all it was another great Harvest Festival weekend and we survived the party, which is quite a feat when it lands in the middle of the busiest time of the year for us! Thank you all so much for coming out and celebrating the good life with us and please come back soon!

Cheers,

Luke

P.S. The photo of the two drinking from the Barrel wands are Niels and Bimmer our fearless, but fun leaders : )

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2011 Harvest, Chugging Along

In my last blog I wrote about the impact of climate and weather on the harvest and how this year we are experiencing a year of low yields and exceptional quality. This continues to be the case and as of late we have been blessed with amazing ripening weather! Warm dry days with little to no wind is the kind of weather that will get our reds off the vine before we run into more trouble! Earlier this week it was 102 degrees in San Luis Obispo, just one degree shy of their record! Yikes!

As of now pretty much all of our whites have been picked and although the yields have been way down, the quality is very high and that is really the most important thing. This week we have been picking Zinfandel from our Dos Viñas vineyard, which is a 30-year-old vineyard and the first Zin we have picked in 2011. If all goes to plan, the rest of our Zin will be next followed by Merlot and finally our Cabernet. Our Whale Rock Pinot has also come in and is looking to be a real gem. This is only the second year we have harvested Pinot from our Whale Rock vineyard in Templeton, which means we have not yet released the first vintage but when we do, be on the lookout because this is a great wine!

In other exciting news, the Harvest Festival is right around the corner, taking place October 21st-23rd. Friday night we are having a “Barefoot Barrels Bash” with dinner provided by Thomas Hill Organics and music by the Barflyz. Tickets are on sale now so don’t miss out! All weekend long there will be live music, grape stomping, barrel tasting and of course plenty of Dam Fine Wine! Please check out the events page on our website for more details on this fabulous weekend. http://www.castorocellars.com/events.php

Cheers,

Luke

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2011 Harvest Update!

As I’ve written many times before, we farmers are truly at the whims of Mother Nature, which is an amazing and challenging reality. Last year we experienced the latest harvest ever at Castoro and this year is right on par with last year. Cooler than normal summers being a huge factor in this shift.

This year we are experiencing another challenge on top of the late ripening of the fruit. Back in April many parts of the Paso Robles appellation were hit with a brutal frost, which left a lot of damage throughout certain vineyards. Until now the extent of the damage was relatively unknown, but we will be the first to tell you now that it is not good! On average, our yields this year have been significantly down from years past and as Niels put it “big crops tend to get bigger and small crops tend to get smaller!” For example, we usually get 3-4 tons per acre on our Chardonnay, this year we got less than a ton per acre and there is really nothing we can do about that! Another favorite, our Blind Faith Pinot Noir comes from two separate blocks and one of them literally has little to no fruit this year (yikes)!

As of now we are about 20% of the way through harvest and even with the grim figures we remain positive and optimistic out at the winery. Resilience is very important in Ag Business and we have been doing this for a very long time. Even though the yields have been extremely low, the quality has been very high on everything that has come in and we are excited about what it has to offer. As I mentioned, one block of our Blind Faith Pinot Noir is looking very sparse but luckily the other block is yielding some good fruit, which will allow us to keep this wonderful wine in production (however small it may be)! If all goes to plan our Blind Faith Syrah will be coming in tomorrow and the BF Zinfandel is looking very strong as well.

With rain in the forecast this week we have more challenges ahead, but rest assured our Dam Fine Crew will make the most of this harvest, however small the yields may be. With that said, expect 2011 to be a harvest of great quality and low quantity!

Cheers,

Luke

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