Two-plus inches of rain in the early middle of harvest this week put a nasty bookend on a season that started with over 2 inches of rain on June 4-5. We are holding our breath for better harvest weather to get the bulk of our crop in. Thankfully we got our usual "Back to School" heat wave in mid-September (100 degrees), which helped our fruit ripen towards harvest.  We have experienced a weather roller coaster this year, starting with the April frost and then those June rains, which occurred right in the middle of bloom, or flowering.

We first noticed signs of bloom around May 26^th when the flowers began to emit their incredible perfume. Each individual flower needs to be pollinated in order to form a berry (grapes are self pollinating).  It is good that not all of the flowers develop into a grape berry or the cluster would become tight, with higher susceptibility to rot, as well as poorer color and flavor development in the skins. On the other hand, difficult weather conditions such as wind, rain and cool temperatures can cause abnormal amounts of flowers to fall in a process referred to as shatter, or coulure in French. Shatter was a widespread problem in Paso Robles this year. A shattered cluster can have as few as 10 berries on the cluster, while a full cluster has over 100 berries.

After fruit set, we lifted our catch wires into position, which organizes the canopy upward. Then we began to remove laterals, which are shoots growing off the primary cane. We had a huge surge of lateral growth this summer as the vines tried to compensate for a frosty spring, using the ample soil moisture that resulted from almost 50 inches of rainfall. Too many laterals can crowd the fruit zone, causing excessive shade and poor air circulation. Laterals also produce second crop, small clusters that typically ripen several weeks after the primary crop. Removing these laterals helps us produce a more evenly ripe crop.  At first the frost and shatter had us spooked about a very small crop of Cabernet, but the grape berries have sized-up nicely over the summer. We are probably doing better than the Paso Robles average for crop load at this point.

Our grapes began to change color in a process called veraison at the beginning of August.  The mild temperatures this summer have been similar to last year, leaving our growing degree days (GDD) almost identical.  GDDs are a measurement of the average from the day's high and low minus a base temperature. For an updated GDD of CA growing regions check out the CA AgQuest website. One by one, the clusters change from green to purple in a 2-3 week time frame depending on varietal.  When 75% of the grapes have changed color, we go through and drop overly green fruit to aid in uniformity of the crop.

Despite the difficult weather this year, we are optimistic about a fine vintage. Now the rest is up to mother nature. The grapes will get checked once or twice a week to evaluate brix content (which is the measurement of sugar), and the pH and Total Acidity (which tells us the acidity levels of the juice). Once a majority of the seeds have changed from neon green to brown and they are separating from the pulp, we know the fruit is getting close to ready. Chewing on the seeds is a good way to see if bitter compounds still need time to resolve.  Ideally we would like to have a nice nutty flavor.  Once we get the flavors we like, we check the weather forecast and decide on a picking date. Hopefully we'll be done before any more rain or frost.