The Wine Knows

Here is a video posted on YouTube by Desert Wind Winery in Prosser after it brought in its first load of Sauvigon Blanc from its estate vineyard on Washington's Wahluke Slope.

I chatted late last week wine Wade Wolfe, owner/winemaker of Thurston Wolfe Winery in Prosser, Wash. He began checking sugar levels and reported that the grapes are nine days ahead of last year - which puts them at about average for a normal vintage (2008 was extremely cool by recent standards).

Here is what we hear going on around the Pacific Northwest:

It was another year of interesting stories and big news in Pacific Northwest wine country. Weather was a big issue for growers and winemakers throughout the region. Wineries and vineyards came under new ownership, a giant in the B.C. wine world stepped away, and we lost Papa Pinot.

For just the sixth time in its storied history, Chateau Ste. Michelle will produce an ice wine, thanks to our Arctic freeze.

Workers trudged through snow-covered Horse Heaven Vineyard at Columbia Crest in Paterson, Wash., - with temperatures at ZERO degrees - to harvest the marble-hard Riesling grapes.

This week's cold snap means ice wine producers in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley will have a merry - and likely warm - Christmas for the second time in three years.

Mission Hill Family Estate near Kelowna, B.C., reported that it had two crews out picking frozen Riesling and Vidal grapes in both the central and southern Okanagan Valley. They are working through six inches of snow that fell and in temperatures between -12 and -21 celcius.

Traditionally, the third Thursday of November is Beaujolais Nouveau day, when the new wines of Beaujolais are released.

My friend and colleague Ken Robertson is a pretty smart guy, but I don't know that he realized this when he left seven bottles of the 2008 Domaine Perdue on my desk yesterday.

I stopped by at J. Bookwalter this morning to chat with owner/winemaker John Bookwalter. He was, quite literally, on the sorting line going through 10 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon from McKinley Springs Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills.

In fact, as I write this, John and his crew likely still are sorting that fruit, as they can go through about a ton to a ton-and-a-half of fruit per hour, double-sorting for leaves, sunburned grapes, etc.

This is harvest weekend for me. My humble backyard vineyard got toasted by the frost two weekends ago, and these Brunello clone Sangiovese grapes are not going to get any riper.

Here's how I do things: I take two 10-quart buckets and start picking grapes, dropping those clusters I am not going to bother using because they're underripe, dessicated or moldy. Then I fill the buckets with water to drown insects and spiders. (Note: earwigs are nasty little creatures straight out of the depths of hell.) Then I take each cluster and pull off the ripe grapes, putting them into a stock pot.

Keith Pilgrim, owner/winemaker of Terra Blanca Winery on Washington's Red Mountain, reported this afternoon that the tiny but important appellation came through the weekend's subfreezing temperatures relatively unscathed.

Two nights of sub-freezing temperatures have toasted my little backyard vineyard. I woke up this morning to brown leaves on my Sangiovese and Riesling vines.

I can kiss goodbye any additional ripening on the Sangiovese vines (the Riesling is just second leaf, so no grapes to worry about). I could still see some accumulation of sugars, but that will be from dehydration in the grapes, not sunshine.