Archive for September 2010
Farming in “real-time” at Trefethen Family Vineyards – August 30th, 2010
Harvest 2010 has officially begun at Trefethen Family Vineyards! At 6:20 this morning, as the sun rose over the Vaca mountains to the east, we picked our first Pinot Noir grapes of the year. Growing more than we need for our estate winery, we sell about 1/3 of the grapes from our estate vineyards to other local wineries. And, as always, this first harvest is for one of our sparkling winery partners because they depend on grapes with lower sugars and higher acids.
Note the blurry hands as Eleuterio “Teo” Gonzalez cuts each Pinot cluster off with lightening speed. Eleuterio, a Trefethen team member since 1996, has always been one of our fastest pickers. And that’s saying something. This morning, across the three crews, we averaged 600 pounds per picker, per hour. Considering that these clusters weigh about 0.20 lbs each, that’s an incredible 3,000 clusters per hour or 50 per minute! And Eleuterio is going faster than average!?!
We expect to continue picking Pinot for sparkling wine over the next few days and then enjoy a brief break before we get into Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for still wines. Looking at the sample numbers from this morning, Malbec is already reaching 20 degrees brix and may be coming in with those other early varieties. As has been widely reported, this has been a relatively cool vintage with the notable exceptions of last week’s heat spell and a nice warm forecast for this week. Here at Trefethen, we took action early in the season to accelerate ripening after seeing some delay as early as April and May. These steps, such as leaving cover crop growing, severely limiting irrigation and thinning both earlier and more aggressively than usual, have helped the vines progress nicely.
Given the cooler summer, we expect to be picking each block 7-14 days later than usual. That said, there really isn’t such a thing as a “typical” or “average” year. Looking at the 42 years of weather data on my office wall confirms this. Every year since the Trefethen family purchased the estate in 1968 has been different in one way or another. Such is the nature of the beast. And, because of that, we never farm for an “average” year. Instead, we farm in real-time, constantly adjusting to the weather at hand – and that’s how great wine is crafted, year in and year out. Okay, time for me to get off my soapbox and back into the vineyard.. Cheers to vintage 2010!
Jon Ruel
Director of Viticulture & Winemaking
