Why did the chicken cross the crush pad?

To get to the Cabernet sauvignon, duh!
Harvest 2018 is officially over in Vinoland.  This afternoon, I assisted Vinomaker with the pressing-off of our Cabernet sauvignon (CS), but before we could proceed we had to shoo a neighbour's chicken away from the press, pump, etc.  Miss Henny Penny may have simply been being  inquisitive about the whole process, but she was still in the way.
The CS looks, smells and tastes great.  I had missed the CS harvest because I was in England, so it was important to me to participate in this final step.  The fruit came in on October 27th, its vital statistics were; 26 °Brix, a pH of 3.5 and TA at 7.2.
Harvest 2018 is done and dusted, whoo hoo!  No chickens were harmed in the making of this wine.

Just a quick Cab drive away.

The Cabernet sauvignon (CS) fruit looks good this year, but it's not the best I've ever seen it.  (That distinction belongs to the 2010 crop.)  The CS fruit definitely doesn't look as good as the Pinot grigio, or the Syrah.  A quick sugar reading today showed that the CS is at 24° Brix.  The weather has cooled down considerably, and even though there is warmer than average temperatures forecast for this weekend, the fruit is as mature as it is going to get.  It's time to get the CS in.  Taxi!

Syrah shuffle.

It usually gets a little bit hectic around here as harvest time approaches.  This year seems to be a little more chaotic than usual.  Vinomaker and I had to put our heads together and come up with a date for our Syrah harvest.  And today was the day.  All went smoothly, the weather was perfect and the harvest celebration afterwards was a lot of fun.
The Syrah fruit looked gorgeous and tasted great too.  The yield, as I suspected, was greater than average - about 30% more.  The Syrah's numbers are: 24° Brix, a pH of 3.58 and TA at 7.2.

Diseased!

This morning was Pinot grigio harvest day in Vinoland.  The fruit looked beautiful and the numbers came in at 27° Brix, a pH of 3.55 and TA at 6.75 - all in a good range.
The 2018 fruit may be in Vinomaker's capable hands now, but I am already thinking ahead to next year and some critical vineyard operations that will ensure a 2019 harvest.  Pruning, of course, is next up, but there is also a bit of replanting to be done.
Alas, there is evidence of Pierce's Disease (PD) in some vines (nine, one right after the other, in one row and at least one vine in the row above them).  The PD symptoms first appeared last year, but this year they are more definitely pronounced; foliar scorching, irregular bark maturity and raisining of the fruit, or, (as demonstrated in the above photograph) miniature clusters (a mere 2.4 inches).
Oh well, it'll give me something to do next spring.

Secondly, Syrah.

I was out and about with my handy dandy refractometer again today, sugar-sampling Vinoland's Syrah grapes.  The fruit looks fantastic, but it isn't ready for harvest yet.  I got a reading of 21 °Brix, and seeing as we don't harvest until the grapes are close to 25 °Brix, we have a bit of a way to go still.  Acidity is lovely, however there's still a little green component in the flavour.  I think it's going to be a good Syrah season.

Through the refractometer window.

Today was the first sugar-sampling of the season.  Using my trusty refractometer, to ascertain the level of sugar in a small sample of Pinot grigio juice, I got a reading of 23.2 °Brix.  A good start, but the flavours aren't quite there yet.
My handheld refractometer is a very useful instrument to have around, it helps makes my job easy.  A large proportion of the soluble solids in grape juice are sugars and it is the ripeness of the fruit (the percentage Brix) that I am trying to determine.  (Fructose and glucose are the main sugars in grape juice, combining as the disaccharide, sucrose.)  The sweeter the juice, the more it will bend the light that passes through it (refraction).  It is the angle of the light, the refractive index, that when viewed through the eyepiece of the refractometer, gives the level, or measurement, of sugar (i.e., grams of sugar per 100 grams of juice) in the sample.  See, easy peasy.  I'll leave the harder part to Vinomaker; determining the acid content and pH.
It is almost harvest time.  I predict I have a busy month ahead of me.

The ruler of Vinoland.

If I'm not careful, I may become the victim of a viticultural-insurrection.  The majority of Vinoland's grapevines look like they are on track to yield their biggest crop ever this season, however, the Syrah vines look like they are vying for domination of the entire vineyard.  Whilst there are lots of average-sized clusters in the Syrah block, the vast majority are simply massive (the photograph doesn't do the largeness of the front cluster justice).  I'll probably be sleeping with one eye open until it's time to harvest the Syrah and put paid to their Machiavellian-maturation.