Yesterday's wine.

I had two wonderful wines with Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. 
A 2017 H&M Hofer, Grüner Veltliner (Weinviertal DAC), paired perfectly with my roast turkey and herby potatoes.  This crisp white wine even with the notoriously-difficult-to-pair brussels sprouts, sautéed with pancetta and onions, that are Vinomaker's favourite.  Delicious. 
For dessert, a traditional pumpkin pie with whipped cream, I imbibed in a 2007 Errazuriz, Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc (Casablanca Valley DO).  Again, delicious.  I gave thanks that my taste buds were having such a good time.

Colour palette.

This mess may look like a Rothko, Pollack, or some other impossible-to-interpret abstract foolishness, but in actual fact it is an emptied half ton Macro Bin which until just recently held fermenting Petite Sirah.  Just look at that colour extraction, it's stupendous!
All fermentation in Vinoland is now finished. And every last drop of wine, late harvest wine and a couple of batches of 'port' are pressed off and barreled down.  Phew, it was a long harvest this year (and I was absent for two weeks of it even).  Good job, Vinomaker.

OMG!

Orange muscat grapes, that is.
Vinomaker and I picked our Orange muscat (OM) today.  Well, what was left of it.  Looking almost like something that had escaped from my compost bin, Vinomaker had deliberately delayed harvesting the OM in the hopes of making a late harvest wine.  OM clusters are rather loose which generally reduces environmental favourablitly for Botrytis cinerea infection (unlike Pinot grigio clusters which are tight and thus susceptible to infection), so instead, dessication, as the result of an extended hang time, was the plan.  Coming in at 34.5 °Brix there is certainly plenty of sugar for Vinomaker to work with.
Although the fruit was quite unprepossessing, (OM never looks pretty as the grapes have a tendency to crack and amber as they ripen), the aromatics of orange skin and honeysuckle as we processed the fruit was absolutely delightful.  No wonder honey bees are attracted to this grape variety.

Good old mould.

These Semillon grapes are looking good, or rather bad - which is a good thing when they are destined to become a late harvest wine.  This Coombsville vineyard is the source of Semillon grapes for Far Niente's Dolce, a delicious late harvest blend of the aforementioned grape and Sauvignon blanc. 
It hasn't been the greatest growing season for late harvest wines.  It has actually been too warm and dry - there has been no rainfall in October.  Last week there was heavy ground fog nearly every day, which is a more desirable climatic condition for Noble Rot, but it may be too little, too late.  Last Tuesday, whilst driving to work, I did espy a vineyard crew working their way through the vineyard with 5 gallon buckets, no doubt making one of many picking passes, selecting only clusters that were showing a good dose of Botrytis cinerea.  I hear the Dolce harvest can last up to 6 weeks.  It's not a cheap wine, but it is a great tipple.

Just desserts?

I spent yesterday performing some odds and ends in the vineyard operations department - sugar-testing and field-budding - but today I spent a little time in the oenology department - bottling Vinoland's small batch of 2011 late harvest Orange Muscat.
This little pet-project of Vinomaker's has resulted in a very agreeable late harvest tipple (as opposed to a dessert wine).  It is a well balanced marriage of sugar and acid that is not in the least syrupy, or cloying, as one might expect of a wine with residual sugar.  Instead, this wine is fresh and lively with a distinct aroma of, well, orange blossom - fancy that!  We decided to put it in 375 ml  bottles...a little goes a long way.