Jonathan Lachs, who with Susan
Marks is owner/winemaker of CedarvilleVineyard in Fair Play, El Dorado County, Sierra Foothills of California, sends
these harvest notes:
 |
| Zinfandel clusters, Sept 2012, Cedarville Vineyard, El Dorado County |
“Activity is picking up quickly
here in our Cedarville Estate vineyard. Throughout
our vineyard, we’re experiencing even ripening with targeted pick dates closer
to historical “averages” or as we often say, “normal”. It’s been a few years since we’ve had normal
pick dates, with 2009, 2010, and 2011 all later-to-much later than normal.
We harvested Syrah grapes for
Hank Beckmeyer and Caroline Hoel’s La Clarine Farm rosé on Saturday, September
8th, as well as some Viognier
for one of their white blends. They make
wines with little intervention beyond a touch of sulfur before bottling (some
folks call them “Natural Wines”), and they are terrific expressions of where
they are grown.
At Cedarville, we now plan to
pick our first Syrah grapes at the end of the week. Our Syrah always seems to ripen first due to
lower yields and its higher elevation on our property.
Our highest elevation Zin is
coming along, too, and we’re targeting September 20th pick date.
One trend we’re experiencing this
year in our Estate vineyard is grape physiological maturity at lower than usual
sugar levels. We usually associate this
with cooler years, and means we may not need wait for higher sugar levels to
achieve desired flavors, which means potentially lower alcohols in the
subsequent wines. Never a bad
thing. We’ll need to wait and see if it
truly plays out this way."
No comments:
Post a Comment