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.

Pressing business.

Vinomaker and I pressed off a lot of wine this afternoon.  A lot!  (Two batches of St. Helena Cabernet sauvignon and Vinoland's Syrah.)  As usual, Vinomaker had slightly underestimated how juicy the Syrah grapes were and so there was a bit of a scramble to find another container to transport the wine from the crush pad up to Vinoland's modest barrel chai.  It was a busy day.
But not before I had taken a quick jaunt up to Oakville to join my co-workers at TWWIAGE in celebrating the end of Harvest 2016.  The vineyard crew at TWWIAGE had harvested the last grapes back on October 8th.  (TWWIAGE's last tank of Cabernet Sauvignon was pressed off on October 17th and was commemorated with a sparkling wine toast.) Those vineyard lads definitely know how to throw a harvest party: it is by far my favourite celebration of the season. Actually, it will be my only harvest party this year, as I won't be able to make it to the other two that I have been invited to.  I have other pressing engagements.

Just juice.

Harvest 2016 is finished, yay!  Vinoland's Cabernet sauvignon grapes, the ones I lovingly tended all summer long, are now just juice (well, skins and seeds too).  The must is now awaiting inoculation with Vinomaker's yeast of choice. My job is done.
Special thanks go out to the St. Helena Sots (both sets), the Barrow Lane Boozer, the Atlas Peak Alky and the Coombsville Carouser, all of whom got just as drenched as me whilst harvesting the grapes.  Cheers, my dears!

Cabernet revealed.

I spent most of today leaf pulling in the Cabernet sauvignon vines in preparation for harvest tomorrow.  I got a good look at the fruit as I stripped the leaves away and I'm estimating the crop is a little lighter than last year.  And the vines seem to be shutting down rather early.
The leaf pulling was a very dusty activity, I was filthy by the time I had finished.  The Napa Valley is expecting its first storm-series of the season tomorrow, perfectly timed to coincide with the Cabernet harvest.  It will be a rather soggy harvest event, but at least I, and the grapes, will be clean at the end of it.  Oh well, sigh.

Press the grape-flesh.

Vinomaker and I pressed off the Vichyssyrah today; it was a very small batch of wine, so it took no time at all.  In fact, cleaning up after the whole pressing process always takes much longer than the actual squishing of the pomace. But Vinomaker is a dab hand when it comes to using a pressure washer and he usually gets it done rather quickly. There are countless cleaning and sanitizing steps involved in every aspect of winemaking and there really are no shortcuts when it comes to cleanliness.  As Bob Pepi, founder of Pepi Winery, once said, "Eighty percent of great winemaking is cleanliness."  I'm of the opinion that the other 20% is spent just thinking about cleaning stuff.

Syrah, sorted.

Vinoland's Syrah is picked, yay!  Harvest was quick and painless and the fruit looks beautiful.  The harvest party (Harvest Chili with jalapeno cornbread, then brownies and Neopolitan ice cream for dessert) was a lot of fun and included a great selection of wines.  All of which were consumed down to the very last drop.
One particular wine, that our merry little harvest group imbibed, was a Syrah made by a co-worker of mine (at TWWIAGE) from grapes from the 2014 harvest in Vinoland.  I was gifted a bottle of  the Syrah last Christmas.  My co-worker and her boyfriend had bottled this wine when it was less than a year old.  The main consideration for the early bottling was that they didn't have enough room at their house to live, for an extended period of time, with a barrel of maturing wine.  And the brief barrel-aging was clearly apparent.
Like a wine that has spent very little time in oak, this young Syrah had proportionally very little going on in the bouquet, or in the taste, department.  Unlike the novel, bubblegum-fun-factor appeal of an adolescent Gamay, i.e., a Beaujolais nouveau, the only interesting thing about this wine was the rather attractive wax seal that embellished the bottle.  (The E and V are the couple's initials, but I suppose they could also stand for enologist and vintner.)
The Syrah wasn't a bad wine, it was just nondescript.  Of course, the entire bottle was consumed.

Syrah strip.

I spent most of today pulling leaves in the Syrah vines in preparation for harvesting tomorrow.  Stripping the leaves from the fruit zone makes the picking of the clusters much quicker, and easier.  The yield looks average, but the quality of the crop looks great.  I ate some grapes as I worked and they tasted lovely, so I am predicting that 2016 is going to be a nice vintage.
Vinodog 2 accompanied me whilst I worked my way along the rows.  Well, actually, she was busy harassing four deer in our neighbour's property who were staring her down.  Then, tired with all that patrol-activity, she passed out on a comfy bed of leaves I had just removed from a vine.  It's a dog's life.

A yeast feast.

Vinoland's first red fermentation of 2016 is under way.  The Vichyssyrah fruit showed up on Friday, was inoculated on Saturday and this evening the must is already merrily foaming along.  However, I don't expect too much foam with this fermentation due to the characteristics of the particular yeast that Vinomaker selected for this Syrah.
Coming in at 24°Brix the Vichy grapes were crushed and destemmed before being introduced to their partner-in-fermentation, Lalvin ICV-D254 (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Lallemand's ICV-D254, a Rhône specialist, is a low foaming yeast selected to ferment in low nitrogen musts and contributes aromas of ripe fruit, cedar, spice and licorice. Sounds lovely, I can't wait to taste it - in two years time.

The Black Cat's meow.

This afternoon, Vinomaker and I spent a pleasant couple of hours at Black Cat Vineyard's harvest/wine club pick-up party.  Proprietor, and winemaker, Tracey Reichow was also releasing her 2014 Howell Mountain Zinfandel and 2014 Coombsville Syrah.  I had a quick taste of both new releases, but due to the rather toasty temperature, (it got to 89°F down the road in Vinoland), I stuck with a rosé that was being poured. And lots of water.  Lots of water.  I tasted enough of the Zinfandel, however, to determine that it did pair well with the barbequed ribs, Italian sausage and beef brisket with crispy grits that were being served, yum.
Good fun and good wine.

Whites are in.

It's been a long day, but Vinoland's two white grape varieties are now just grape juice and are safely chilling their little bottoms off in the cellar.  The Pinot grigio fruit looked beautiful and came in at 26 °Brix (not sure about the Orange Muscat sugar).  I'm pooped.
This year we experimented with rice hulls as a press aid and they really seemed to help with the extraction of more grape juice.  There was plenty to go around, enough to share with this thirsty honey bee.
Whites down, reds to go.

Berry close.

These Pinot grigio grapes are cuddled up and squished very close to each other.  They are also very close to being harvested.  Vinomaker tasted a few berries this morning and then requested that I collect some grapes for him to test.  A quick 100 berry sample later, the Pinot grigio's vital statistics are; 25.6°B, a pH of 3.4 and a TA of 7.4.  It appears that they are good to go.
The weather has cooled down considerably the past two days and it's suddenly feeling quite autumn-like.  I am glad that it has cooled down, (though, it has been quite chilly at breakfast the past couple of mornings), as it will buy me a little bit of time to get things organised for picking. Never a dull moment.

Sugar levels.

I tested the sugar in the Pinot grigio grapes for the first time today. Using a handheld refractometer I took a simple measurement of the fermentable sugars available in a 100 berry sample from the vineyard and came up with a reading of 23.2 °Brix.  Not bad, for starters.
The 2016 growing season has been uncharacteristically cool and rather reminiscent of the 2010 growing season, methinks.  The month of August has been much cooler than is normal, so ripening has slowed down for everyone in the Napa Valley.  But the fruit looks great in Vinoland, so I think the future is looking sweet.

Hello, veraison: Part 2.

Besides Syrah, Vinoland's Pinot grigio vines are also well into the process of veraison; berry colour is changing, sugars are accumulating, acid is decreasing.  This photograph also shows that lignification is taking place, another indicator of physiological ripening, as the shoots are changing from being supple and green, to woody and brown.  It'll very soon be time to apply the bird netting to Vinoland's white grape varieties.
On a related note, the Napa Valley's grape harvest for 2016 began yesterday at dawn.  Not as early as last year, but still early.  Just over 20 tons of Pinot Meunier were harvested at a vineyard in the southern end of Napa County which are destined to become Mumm Napa sparkling wine. I do hope that the folks at Mumm take these grapes and produce a 100% varietal sparkling Pinot Meunier with them (as they have in past vintages).  Pretty, please? Yum, yum, yum.