Roll on vintage 2012.

From a grape-growing perspective, I am glad to see the back of 2011.  Rain, rain and more rain.  Cooler than average temperatures.  Persistent marine fog.  Powdery mildew running amok through Vinoland.  Just one of these trying climatic conditions would have been perhaps a tolerable nuisance, but all of them in a single, abbreviated growing season?  One would have been forgiven for expecting a plague of locusts of biblical proportions next.  Besides all that, it was quite a good year.  But 2012 will be better.

A happy, healthy and fermented-grape juice filled New Year to everyone.

Bye bye leaves.

The leaves of Vitis vinifera live for approximately 150 days: that's almost a full 5 months, from the time of budbreak, of basking in the warm California sun. The basal leaves, the first to appear in the spring, have done their very best for this vintage and are now amongst the first to slowly take their leave. See ya next year!