Leaf tannins

The thing about leaves is that they don’t taste good.  You don’t want them in your grapes, nor in your wine.  Good vineyard people have stationed people where the grapes are dumped into the bins, constantly removing leaves and checking for bad fruit.  Most wineries don’t have sorting tables and really, since the bins are coming in one at a time, with a couple of guys with quick hands, you can deliver clean fruit that will make better wine.  It’s a tiny little step that helps to separate the great from the merely good enough.

Friday was the Sonoma Patrons night, and there was wine to drink and goat to eat.

Saturday, we picked some  valley floor Syrah that tasted lovely, all blueberry syrup.  I drank a Bucklin Gewurtztraminer (good but the last vintage they’ll make of that grape), a Nicholson Ranch rose (blah), and some other rose I wasn’t so into.

Monday was rain in the morning, so no picking.  I worked until 8:30 that night in the winery of a client.  I miss winemaking and am fairly willing to work for free in order to see my babies turn into delicious wine that moves away and never visits.

Today I picked some more mountainside Cab Franc.  Its supposed to warm up significantly, but rain again by  the end of the week.  It’s starting to get urgent that fruit is picked before it falls apart in the rain.  All this moisture and humidity means more botyritis, more mildew on the canes, problems with fermentations and more work in the cellar.