The threat of rain does interesting things to winemakers and vineyard owners. The lucky ones got fruit just ripe enough before this past week’s rains and were able to make hay as the sun shone. Others rolled the dice, knowing the seeds aren’t crunchy, the skins are still too tough and the flavors are interesting, but not necessarily wine-worthy.Right now, it looks like they bet well, as we’re in for warmth and breezes right through this coming weekend. However, they’ll be spraying for mildew if the chance of rain they’re forecasting for tomorrow, Columbus Day, materializes.
This time of year, if it rains just a wee bit, and then dries out with good breezes and a modicum of warmth, then life will be fine. But if Mother Nature throws a true hissy fit, and dumps a boatload, followed by malingering bouts of wailing and wetness that lasts for a few days, well, then mildew can rear its ugly head and the whole opera takes a decidedly dour turn, with wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. When The Fat Lady sings, it might not be a happy song on her outsized lips. So, we await with earnest hope a fond return to the balmy breezes and brilliant summer sunshine that once graced our fair land, before Autumn came to town. We can only hope that the harvest will actually be a good one, when all is said and done.
Meanwhile, in other parts, some vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains were lucky enough to have abundant warmth just in advance of the latest trauma, and were frantically picking everything they could over the weekend. Burrell School got all the chardonnay in, usually reserved for three picks over the course of a few weeks, in just two days, literally getting the very last bunches off just before the rains came on Monday afternoon. It was an occasion worth celebrating with fine champagne, but there’s no rest for the weary, as they spent the next day with blow dryers trying to keep mildew from setting up on the hanging merlot and petit verdot grapes that are well short of the sugar levels that would turn them into something not resembling vinegar.
Winemaker Bradley Brown of Big Basin Vineyards, managed to get the Lester Family pinot from Corralitos in before the last rain, and hopes to pick Woodruff pinot, an older vineyard in the same region, later this month. He didn’t seem too concerned: “The older vine pinot noir, at Woodruff Vineyard, is always later, towards the end of October, but I’m not worried about it. A little rain won’t hurt old vines, because their roots go way deep, they’re not going to uptake on rain that only penetrates a couple of inches into the soil. Old vines seem to shrug off weather impacts more readily.” The estate syrah grapes (left), in Boulder Creek on the way to Big Basin Park, will probably be the last in.
In Livermore, the sauvignon blanc and semillon has all been picked, as well as some of the chardonnay. The reds are languishing, though, and it’s a good things yields are low, as this will at least hasten ripeness with the sun showing its shiny countenance once more.
Steven Mirassou (La Rochelle & Steven Kent) reports that all those varietals have been harvested from the Ghielmetti vineyard in Livermore, where he reports that the crop is overall quite light, especially for the reds. He’s also brought in pinot from two vineyards in Monterey, McIntyre Vineyards and Soberanes, as well as pinot from Londer in Anderson Valley. Chardonnay has been gathered from Dutton-Morelli Lane in Sonoma and from Rosella’s in the Santa Lucia Highlands.
But all the sun in the world isn’t going to help my pathetic tomatillos. I had to laugh at Morgan winemaker/owner Dan Lee’s reaction when I asked how his were doing – he has a little garden in the Double L vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands, which he fondly calls “Lee Family Farm,” and I remembered he had a tomatillo plant there last year. “Oh, they’re pathetic! They’re dinky!” he replied, shaking his head. And I thought I was the only one who had tomatillos the size of tuppence instead of silver dollars. Or, for those of you who are monetarily bereft of experience with coinage, they’re the size of red hots instead of Oreos. They’re barely worth taking the rather outsized hulls off. It’s like a two-year-old swimming in one of Barbra Streisand’s full length mink coats. But they are certainly tasty little morsels, as the mice have found out. I’m finding those papery enclosures in some very strange places these days.
All in all, the 2011 harvest thus far is an elevator that doesn’t quite get to the top floor. Or, as my father-in-law would say, it’s a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. Here’s to Indian Summer!
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