Thanks to the Sun the Grapes have Come!!

September 30, 2010

For those of you who have been following my blog over the past few weeks, you have probably noticed how much I have been referring to our weather patterns and how much they impact the grape harvest. This past week we have experienced incredibly warm weather and due to this heat wave we are finally seeing a constant influx of grapes at the winery. This is possibly the latest harvest season we have ever had and we are ecstatic to see that it is finally moving along.

As of now we have processed almost all of our Sauvignon Blanc, Gewürztraminer, and Muscat Canelli and we should be getting some Chardonnay in this week as well. As usual, the reds are a bit behind the whites but we might be seeing some Syrah in the near future and some Zinfandel and Merlot from our warmer climate vineyards. In our west side vineyards, we picked our Whale Rock Pinot Noir and Chardonnay last week, Pinot Grigio yesterday and if everything goes according to plan we should be picking our Stone’s Throw Viognier tomorrow! In other words, we are finally very busy out at the winery and it is a great feeling (even if we are working in 105 degree heat).

This morning I had the pleasure of chatting with our winemaker Tom Myers to get his input on how the grapes are looking this year. According to Tom, the sugars are looking good and the chemistry is looking great on the grapes we are receiving and testing from our vineyards. Some grapes have come in with higher than desired sugar levels but that is something we can deal with. Overall Tom said in his opinion we are looking at a “good year with exciting quality,” and I really can’t emphasize enough how excited and relieved we are about this at Castoro. If you remember from my blog a few weeks back, we were looking at a very different scenario than we are seeing now. What could potentially have been a detrimental year has turned around and now has the potential of being one of the best.

If you would like to keep up on events and info at Castoro Cellars please check out our website or follow us on facebook and youtube.

www.castorocellars.com, www.facebook.com/castorocellars, www.youtube.com/castorocellars

Until next time,

Cheers,

Luke

Grapes are Trickling in . . . Finally!

September 20, 2010

As I mentioned in the last blog, due to a cooler than usual summer, we have been hit with a later than usual harvest.  Fortunately, harvest is now underway and as long as we can avoid early frost and rain, we should be looking at a great vintage.  Although harvest is underway we still have a long way to go.  So far we have seen a few early varietals trickling in, such as Muscat Canelli and Sauvignon Blanc and later this week we should be seeing some Chardonnay and more Sauvignon Blanc from our Dos Vinas vineyard.  Luckily, it looks like we will be having a warming trend at the end of this week that will hopefully continue through the weekend, and as I mentioned in my previous blog, sunshine fuels the ripening process!

In the meantime, as we wait for the grapes to ripen, we are spending a lot of time cleaning up the winery, bottling, and moving around wine to create tank space for the eventual harvest madness.  One advantage to a later harvest is having more time to prepare for the arrival of the grapes.  This year we anticipate getting most of our grapes in a short period of time, resulting in a very busy but shorter harvest season.  Having time to prepare for harvest is very beneficial because once the grapes come in it can be quite hectic on the cellar floor and taking care of smaller tasks and repairs becomes much more difficult.  At this point we are well prepared for the harvest and we are very excited for more grapes to come in.  In the meantime we are keeping our fingers crossed for some nice warm weather!!

Cheers,

Luke