Purple Cow Vineyards

What in the world is going on with harvest?

I'd like to recognize Tacia Miller in advance for asking questions that result in many of the blog entries on winemaking and viticulture.  Without her thirst for knowledge, I'd not recognize the opportunity to share interesting information with you.

I'm no dinosaur of the wine world so take the following statement with a grain of salt: this has been the coolest summer ever for me and the current weather forecast makes this the most challenging harvest planning I have ever experienced.  Surely someone has a worse story than I, but here's what I see...

For a little context, in 2005 we picked the Pinot Noir on 9/28 and the Muscat on 10/1.  With good weather targeting ideal ripeness, I'll be picking the 2007 Muscat on 10/3 (2 days late), the first block of Pinot on 10/5 (1 week late), and the second block on 10/11 (2 weeks late).  The latest forecast means those dates are optimistic (while I'm writing it just started to rain).  We're getting to a point where ripening potential is less each day, Botrytis is a threat, birds want more than their share, and excess water can burst berries which attract yellow jackets.

Neil and I have discussed picking his block - this is his first harvest, a block 200 yards uphill my own, beautifully managed. His grapes are somewhat ahead this year.  Somehow I find that possibility frustrating because it is motivated by the weather forecast and introduces the possibility that we would sacrifice quality at the expense of quantity.  So far, we've managed to show courage and picked nothing.  [Note to readers, I chickened-out in 2004 and picked early because of the weather forecast and then weather improved.]

Since it costs me a lot of money to make wine, not to mention bottles and labels, I'm going to hold out.  It would be better for me to lose crop than make mediocre wine.  I'm toying with some alternative wine styles that I'll keep under wraps for now, and hopefully never try them.

I think the Muscat will be fine.  For some reason the Muscat (and the Tempranillo) seem to continue ripening in cool weather whereas the Pinot is waiting for warmth.  So while the weather this year is bad, Tempranillo and Muscat still prove no worse than Pinot Noir under my viticulture program.  I will continue with the expansion of Tempranillo in the spring.

Doing the "SUN DANCE".  -Jon-

...and suddenly, it clicked.

I sometimes ask why I have no faith in the recovery of recently bottled wines.  As seen in the photo, Kelsey herself always confidently asserted that all would be fine and that I needed to take a chill pill.  She's probably right, but like the Ginkgo Biloba, I always forget to take it.  Sometimes the questioning comes from the behavior of others, such as the 2 collegues that recently poured wines at events within 1 week of bottling (it didn't go well for them).

Sometimes my lack of faith comes from criticism of my own wine. I always forecast a 4 week buffer between bottling and release.  Over the past few releases, I have been spoiled in the sense that the wines didn't seem to go through a bottling shock.  The 2006 Pinot Noir Kelsey and Sophie editions experienced BIG SHOCK.  So every weekend, I would open one bottle and see how it was doing.  It wasn't making any progress.  Well tonight (9/26/2007), it suddenly and totally recovered.  What's weird is that I was seeing no signs of progress, all the w ay up to 9/21/2007.  The family and friends are speculating that it was the problems with 2007 weather causing me to be negative, or allergies that were blocking my detecting the progress.  Perhaps.  I will be double-checking to make sure it's still great tomorrow (am I dreaming?).  Sophie's Edition was bottled 8/25/2007.  Kelsey's Edition was bottled 9/1/2007.  How does that compare with the buffer forecast...what do they say about watched pots?...the faith...

Washington County Visitors Association new Website

Thought I would point the readership to their new website because it's actually quite good.  Excellent work guys.  http://comeplayyourway.com/Play/Wineries/2890.aspx.

Vino 100 mentions Purple Cow on Fox 12 News

Check this out! Megan from Vino 100 starring in Great Wines on a Budget which aired on KPTV. What a thrill for us to have Purple Cow Chardonnay highlighted. And the cork get's a plug too!

Congratulations ladies on your stardom and well done!  Thanks for the free press.

How do you know when to pick?

I am often asked when we pick or how we decide to pick, so I thought I'd post the answer.  This is an extremely important process in determining the quality and character of the wine and we are very careful to get this just right.

Forecasting: First, we forecast ripening based upon tracking the number of degree days accumulated throughout the growing season.  Using this data, which is based upon the mean temperture each day, we can create historical benchmarks that associate observed ripening progress to a number.  Then we forecast when those numbers will occur in the current year to predict the ripening milestones such as bloom, veraison, and harvest.

Measuring: Once we have narrowed down the harvest window, we engage in statistcal sampling to assess the ripeness of a block of grapes.  In order to get a valid sample, we must be careful not to select grapes from a single area, a consistent cluster position on the plant, or part of the cluster.  Using some science from our day jobs, we actually perform the most laborious process possible, which is berry sampling.  We go through and pick a single berry from lots of different clusters, careful to be varied (random) in our selection.  After walking through the block, we have a bag full of berries.  We hand-crush the berries into juice and then assess the juice for specific-gravity, pH, and titratable acidity.  We also observe the color of the seeds and taste the juice (a reliable measurement the more experience you accumulate).  Once all the numbers line up and the observations match our expectations, we're ready to go.  Tools used for this process are a refractometer, a pH meter, an acid titration kit, and a hydrometer.

Forecast for this year is that we'll be picking later than usual and will start our measurements at the end of September, expecting to pick starting the beginning of October.  -Jon-