2010 Harvest and Crush

Well, the cold summer finally yielded some grapes from the side of the house. This year's haul was 72 lbs., up from 55 lbs. last year.  The Pinot Meunier vines are starting to produce a few clusters, so I'm hopeful that next year they'll be able to contribute more significantly to the overall production and taste.  I don't think I'll ever have enough that I could crush and press just the Meunier separate from the Noir, so it will probably always be a field blend.  I don't know what cultivar the Meunier is, having obtained it as cuttings from the Kendall Jackson Center in Santa Rosa, but the Pinot Noir is UCD-23 aka Mariafeld.

I tried 100% dry farming this year, and learned that I won't be doing it again next year.  The grapes that were farthest from run-off water from my neighbor's backyard were extremely small and didn't really have a higher sugar content than the much fatter grapes from nearer the fence.  I think next year I'll try watering once a week, maybe a gallon or so, and see how that affects the grapes.  Dry farming did weird things to the leaves on some of the vines, too.

I foiled the birds this year by simply dropping netting over the entire side of the house.  I'll just leave it up and hopefully it lasts for a few years (luckily netting is pretty inexpensive).

The cool weather seems to have produced grapes with a much higher acid content, at least anecdotally (taste -- I don't have any equipment to measure the TA or pH).  It will be interesting to see how the wine comes out or what I have to do to it.

I broke down and purchased a crusher/stemmer.  It was the last major piece of equipment that is needed to produce wine (having purchased a #25 press last year).  I figure if I ever stop making wine from grapes I either grow or source, I can always sell the stuff I've purchased (the crusher and the press) for close to what I paid for them.

I decided to stick with the same yeast this year (Assmanshausen).  Here's an interesting link to descriptions of various yeast strains, if anyone is really interested. Strains of Wine Yeast

Here's to the start of the 2010 Julia's Pinot!

Pictures soon to follow