Posts tagged ‘winemaking’

2017 Harvest Update: October 6th

Local Lake Erie Region Blueberry Crop: North East, PA

The continued warm and relatively dry weather is giving us something that we don’t always have in our harvest—the ability to let fruit hang and ripen under full sun and heat. This time of the year we usually have to start considering trade-offs – carefully watching fruit quality and health of the leaves and often having to harvest before we would really like to beat the onset of deterioration from mold or disease. Right now, with the conditions we have been seeing, disease just isn’t a problem and we are free to let the fruit continue to develop sugar, burn up acid, and start tasting really good.

In one of the early Harvest Notes, I commented on the early onset in veraison in one of our grower’s Cabernet Franc vineyard. At that time, it was promising but too early to tell the ultimate effect this might have on final fruit quality and whether it would lead to accelerated development and an earlier harvest. Based on past experience I was betting “no” on early harvest. Most often when grapes are ahead of schedule coming into harvest, it always seems to even out by the end, and harvest ends up being at the normal time. So it was a bit of a surprise and a testament to this season’s great conditions when we tested the Cabernet Franc earlier this week and found that everything was indicating a fully mature crop. We harvested on October 2, and the grapes are now in the fermenter, on their way to becoming what looks to be a phenomenal example of this phenomenal variety.

Speaking of red wines, we pressed off the fermenting Chancellor, one of the earlier red varieties and the resulting young wine was deeply colored with nice berry-like aromas and full tannins. The Dornfelder has also completed fermentation and will soon be barreled for aging. Starting next week, we’ll be bringing in more of the late-season varieties, starting with Blaufränkisch and Carmine.

Another variety that is worth mentioning is Chardonnay. This year’s fruit was clean and ripe when delivered, with a nice balance in of sugar and acid. Last year’s Chardonnay was aged in 500L (132 gal) French oak puncheons, and this will be taken out of barrel in the coming week for bottling and to make room for the new vintage. These are special barrels—the size, just over twice the size of a normal barrel, changes the volume to surface area ratio and gives a more subtle and nuanced extraction of oak from the barrel. The result is a more elegant expression of fruit with a fine oak structure. Given the degree of perfection of the 2017 fruit, fermentation in these barrels should yield a truly spectacular wine.  Stay tuned for release in 2019!

Bob Green
PIWC Executive Winemaker