Harvest Craziness Continues

We just got back from Northern California to take in our Anderson Valley pinot noir grapes and our Rockpile zinfandel grapes.  And, as I write this, I've got another window open on the screen to book flights back up to the San Francisco for tomorrow morning.  Our first two pinots - the Sonoma Coast from the Split Rock Vineyard and the Santa Lucia Highlands from the Doctor's Vineyard are about done going through fermentation and are almost ready for pressing and barreling.  As you can see from the graphs below, the brix (sugar) has been dropping out and the temperature has been rising as the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol.  Once the brix hits anywhere from +1 to -1 we can go ahead and start the barrel aging process. 

We'll have much more on this process as things calm down, but if you're interested in learning more about this process, please click here to read Kerith's excellent post on fermentation and click here for a more detailed description of the press process - both from last harvest season (sorry to be recycling posts, but this harvest season has been insane - and we're not done yet!)

If you happen to be in the bay area this weekend, please drop us a line - we'd love to have you come share in our first sips of the 2009 wines!

If you can't see the graphs, please click here.