Oops...Have Not Posted in a While

Since our last posting, almost a month ago (my bad), a lot has happened. We have finished harvesting everything for ourselves and only have two tons of late harvest Riesling and Petite Verdot for other wineries to go, pressed off all of the Syrah, Cab Franc, Myer Merlot and Cab, the Cab Franc Rose', Riesling, Viognier and Chardonnay and finished with fermentation, we had a frost scare, I got Swine Flu (I do not really think it was H1N1 but it makes for a better story) in the middle or our busiest week, and we picked the most fruit ever by over double in a single week, we held the first annual Great Grape Stomp and had another great Winemaker for a Day event (pictured above). Living the dream we like to say.

Hopefully all of my whinning makes the tardy posting a little justifiable.

The light is at the end of the tunnel and it is great. We still have 35 tons fermenting but should be done with that by the end of next week. It has been the craziest harvest we have dealt with but fruit quality was outstanding so it is worth it. A full harvest recap to come in the near (sooner than a month) future.

The crew is now winterizing irrigation and equipment, fixing all of things we break during harvest and hold together with duct tape and a prayer and generally taking a deep breath. Matt has been busy monitoring fermentation (50 tons at once is a lot for us) and I have been his cellar rat for the past few days.

There are videos of both the Great Grape Stomp and Winemaker for a Day posted our Facebook page.

More interesting and thoughtful postings to come...

Pick, Crush, Repeat...

Nothing new here. Pick, haul the fruit to the winery, crush the fruit, haul the empty bins back to the vineyard, pick again. That interspersed with irratic four-wheeler rides to figure out what the hell we are picking next and the constant ring, vibrate or beeb or my phone pretty much sums up life during harvest.

I do have to admit that I am sort of looking forward to my second favorite day of the year, the end of harvest (the start of harvest is my favorite).

We are still pushing hard but should have the lion's share done by the end of next week. All in all fruit quality looks great. I think we hit the canopy to crop load balance spot on (knock on wood) in most places.

More on harvest later. Time to go home.

This past week was relatively light for picking from our vineyard. We finished Riesling on Monday and picked Syrah on Tuesday from Copeland. The fruit looked great. We picked Syrah, Riesling and Cabernet Franc from Dineen.

Unfortunately, a lighter week last week means a crazy week to come. We should be picking Cabernet Franc, Merlot, more Syrah and will probably start picking Cabernet from an early site.

Matt has been busy getting the Chardonnay to barrel, inoculating Riesling and Syrah and getting ready to bring in bring more fruit.

We also sent out about 500 gallons of cold settled Chardonnay, Riesling and Gurty which will ultimately end up at a winery in Virginia. It will be fun, as it always is, to see how another winemaker crafts our fruit.

We have brought in 22.6 tons and have roughly 40 go for ourselves; not that we are counting or anything.

We have posted a video of crushing Copeland Syrah on our Facebook page. Check it out if you get the chance.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Two-Mountain-Winery/27945791660?ref=ts