The Harvest of 2006 will go on record as being one of the latest, longest and most physically grueling in recent history, not just for me, but for winemaking crews throughout the state of California.
The 2006 season started off with an early February bud-break and a wet, but mild winter. For the second year in a row, the mid-winter rains cleansed the soils and flushed the roots of any accumulated salts and toxins. The fruit set in the spring was lighter than last year, which had been a record-breaking one.
With the exception of a brief, not too-intense heat spell in July, the summer ripening season was fairly cool, and the skies often lightly clouded. This slowed the growth and maturity of the crop to the point that we intervened several times with aggressive shoot-thinning and multiple passes at "green-harvesting" to remove suckers and under-ripe fruit. This helps the vine to focus its energies on the bringing the remaining fruit clusters to ripeness.
Despite these expensive and labor-intensive efforts, it was a long and frustrating wait for the grapes to achieve full maturity, as tested by measuring the grape sugars, checking the seeds for lignification (making sure they are brown and crackly, not soft and green) and more importantly, tasting for flavor development. The good news is that it was worth the wait.
The Harvest of 2006 will go on record as being one of the latest, longest and most physically grueling in recent history, not just for me, but for winemaking crews throughout the state of California.
