After 4 years of planning, planting, farming and fretting,

Harvest 2008

You can grow grapes in coastal North County,  but you need to know what your doing regarding the clone, canopy management, site location (wind, sun) and disease control. 

Each location is site specific.  Just our two vineyards on the same property have different soils and micro climate conditions as an example and are farmed with different methodologies and root stock.

 

In a climate that rarely gets above 85 degrees, canopy management, and disease control are paramount.  Couple that with organic farming and you have a challenging task. 

 

On the wine making side,  We harvested 740lbs or 90 gallons of Brunello vcr-06  from the rear vineyard.  The taste and smell are really good and the numbers if your into that are super as well.  23.5 brix so a finished alcohol after fermentation to -.5 of around 13.8, perfect for a Brunello,  a ph of 3.49 and a TA of .69

 

Basically all good numbers so no additions or corrections needed for the wine. A good first year harvest.   I am not into heavy alcohol wines strong on sugars but short on acids and tannins and prefer a classic style of Brunello in the mid 13s with great acids and longevity.  We were targeting our harvest for good acids and 1.090 to 1.100 S.G. and we were very happy that we did so successfully.

 

We will get 75 to 80 gallons of wine from this or 350-400 bottles.  Next year we hope to get 20% more from the rear vineyard and the front vineyard will come on line so we are scaling up for about 600 bottles a year from the home vineyard.

In a year or so, we will begin to taste our earth in the form of wine, with grapes from our vineyard.

 

 

Really, really, a fun day and a great excuse to drink wine for breakfast. 

Thanks to all our great friends who helped!

Peder & Julie