An Experience of a Life Time
By: Peter Brehm
Home winemakers that source their own grapes have an inkling as to what ‘bring the grapes in’ really means. For the last two West Coast vintages it has been miserable, cold and wet. 2012’s cool spring with sufficient rain left us with some questions, but definitely better than 2010 or 2011.
Then nice warm weather descended, heads raised, expectations went up, as did prices and toughness of negotiations. The Napa appellation (ava) require a price that drove us to Sonoma grapes of comparable quality and far better value. Brehm Vineyards left the Oak Knoll Cab for Plum Ridge. Plum Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab. Franc, and Petit Verdot had out performed the Oak Knoll the year before. The grape market was quite tight, most expected tonnage was spoken for. We increased tonnage with our long time growers, added grapes from the Sierra Foothills, and expanded our procurement in the Columbia Gorge and Valley to Rhone and Italian varietals.
We had contracted so much Cab and Bordeaux varietals we entered into a custom crush agreement with a local winery to deal with the excess. A small winery was in line to purchase these bulk wines. In the California’s North Coast the grapes were looking very good (see YouTube get together of Francis Mahoney, Conor McCormick, Steve Bell & Peter), "if the winemakers can’t make great wine from them, they screwed up’). Thus began the great Pinot Noir Harvest of 2012 in the Russian River Valley and Carneros regions.
It was exactly 8:00 am, when my phone rang. It was the owner of our custom crush winery, ‘There is no room for your grapes!’ Five days into the Pinot Noir harvest and every fermenting tank in Napa and Sonoma was full. From the first weeks in September to the middle of October, wineries were processing Pint Noir. While the cluster counts were good, the berry and cluster weights were huge. Vineyard yields exceeded expectations by 30+%. Not only was it a very large crop, it had deep color, wonderful balance, great flavors, everything you could ask for. Meanwhile observations of the Pinot Noir crop in the Columbia Gorge and Willamette Valley talked of very small berries, very small clusters with low pHs and wonderful prospects. While Northern CA was experiencing a very big, wonderful crop, the North West was a wonderful, small crop. White Salmon Vineyard Pinot Noir was tested on 10/2 with sugars from different fields of 23°, 21.6°, and 24° with all acids above 1.3 and pH’s of 3.07 to 3.1.A fine selection of Las Brisas Pinot Noir was harvested with good acid and perfect brix and pH. The crop was plentiful enough that BV was able to secure additional tonnage. This is the first time in many seasons that there is a post harvest inventory of Las Brisas Pinot Noir. If you have been considering a Pinot Noir project, jump to it, the makings will not be any better! The harvest of the White Salmon Vineyard Pinot Noir was very small, not allowing all orders to be filled, and not leaving any of that wonderful fruit for winter fun.
While off to a wonderful late start, the 2012 vintage started becoming a little more unusual. The warm days and cold nights of Napa & Sonoma seemed to favor the ripeness of our ridge top vineyards. The lower elevation sites lingered with slower sugar accumulation. The warmer ridge top evenings allowed ripening to continue. We started obtaining 22° / 23° readings from ridge top Cabs (YouTube Video of Charlie Smith' Vineyard) while the Carneros and valley vineyards lingered. After one small heat shock of a few days, grape profiles and their relative timing were unique in my experience:
The point being:
We had harvested all ridge top Cabernet Sauvignon before harvesting any Chardonnay. The surrounding vineyards, full of Chardonnay, in October, said this was more than a little different, or unique to us. The unusual varietal ripening persisted at our White Salmon Vineyard. The first grapes harvested were Chardonnay, not the Pinot Noir – very unusual. This may have also been fortunate. The peak of ripeness was greeted with showers. Showers that did persist. The earlier ripening Columbia Valley and Eastern Columbia Gorge grapes were able to be harvested ripe, before any showers: Syrahs, Grenache and Barbera did very well.
Gewurztraminer came off before the showers, but the wait to lower pH’s to manageable levels found solution in light dilution, with the showers. I believe to the benefit of the Pinot Gris / Grigio, less so for the Gruner, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. All have wonderful fruit, and for those processing from frozen grapes, all sugar, acid adjustments may be naturally employed during defrosting. It is easy to leave water behind.
Holding hope for a big, rich Nebbiolo, we waited out a couple of rains. This vineyard does not usually experience rain so early, and with less than 10” of annual rain, hardly at all. 2012 proved different, it did rain. When the Nebbiolo grapes went in the destemmer, the berries and stems did not have an idea which part went where. The stems had broken down and the fruit was overly ripe. The sugar had decreased to 22° brix, acid of 0.58 and a pH of 3.44. We realized that this was no big, Piedmontese Nebbiolo, and diverted the bins to the bladder press. Here a reddish, flesh toned rosé juice was expressed. A juice is capable of making a delightful wine for picnics, or perfectly matched with barbecued chicken – at a diverted, lower priced juice – try it!2012 was a compressed, highly unusual, wonderful Vintage – don’t miss it.
No comments:
Post a Comment