All is Promise, Now

I was out walking around Ghielmetti Vineyard today, and it was just about perfect...75 degrees, just a gentle houghing of a breeze coming from the Bay, the new, green canes knocking innocently against the trellis wires. The sun felt nice on my shoulders; the hares - like lampposts - signaled my way before bounding off between the rows, and the vultures wheeled above me. It all felt new, just like it does every year at this time.

Bloom is over, and the incipient bunches sport little BBs of green. Anthropomorphically, these little balls are our future. Whatever is to come from this year's harvest, whatever memorable vintage, whatever potential greatness will come from these grapes-in-waiting.

All is promise now. And it is good.

Trying to Keep Perspective

Capi, the Wonder Dog

If we had more than one chance a year to bring in the grape crop, I'd be more sanguine about threatening weather like we had today. Add sprinkles to the north of us and temperatures in the 60's to an already very mild year,  and it's enough to drive you nuts.

The photo to the right is of the western sky over Livermore looking through the Forman clone Petit Verdot block at the highest point of the vineyard. While it didn't actually rain as I was taking my dog on a grape inspection tour, the cold temps and overcast skies don't do much to help further ripening.

We pulled our last fruit for Lineage (Malbec) off the site on November 6th last year...my suspicion is that we could be later than that this year.

Notwithstanding the sketchy weather, the fruit itself looks great. Clone 30, our most important block, has great uniformity of color and relatively small berries and clusters. Clone 4 Cabernet also looks immaculate, at this point. If we get the right weather for a stretch, a lot of this lateness we're experiencing now will be gone. And days like today will only be valuable as blog fodder.