Jeff’s Letter from November 2023

As I pen this missive, we have just surpassed the halfway mark in the 2023 harvest. We are slated to crush 288 tons this year and yesterday, October 16, we crushed our 154th ton. We finished the harvest last year on October 18th. What a difference a year can make. 2023 started with a late spring. In some regions bud break was delayed by cool temperatures for close to three weeks.

Despite almost ideal growing conditions this summer we just never caught up. It doesn’t help that the plentiful winter rainfall enticed the vines to set a larger than normal crop and that has further delayed the ripening. On the positive side this harvest has been heaven compared to last year’s hell. Last year the onset of crush was greeted by ten consecutive days of triple digit heat. This year we didn’t have a single hundred-degree day in the entire month of September. This year the grapes are ripening later in the season when nighttime lows are now in the forties. This keeps acid levels high and develops deep yet bright colors that I haven’t seen in decades. If inclement weather can hold off for another three weeks, 2023 could well be the vintage of the millennium.

With the November Wine Club Release, we will initiate our White Wine Option. We now produce seven different white and Rosé wines and will offer them as an amendment to existing wine club memberships. We have hesitated to include white and rosé wines in the wine club because so many of you are members because the club is red wine only. But the requests and curiosity about our white wines has grown to the point that we have decided to offer a white wine supplement, a single bottle of white or Rosé wines with each shipment. Let us know if you are interested.

~ Jeff