Harvest That Wasn't - Dropping Our 2011 Crop

Didn't quite catch the beauty of the scene this morning from my car window prior to reversing out of the driveway to take my youngest son to school.

The mist was low over peach-hued hills in West Petaluma and early sunshine attempting to seep through made for an outstanding pallet of watercolor greens and pinks and blues. Quite lovely, though ironic as we'd just come to a final, much-debated conclusion the prior evening that there would be no Syrah harvest this season, after all.

Sugars had finally peaked this week, after watching and waiting through all the weird, unseasonal rain storms of the past month. Mold had seemingly not yet set in to our hillside fruit despite the wet trend, yet an onslaught of record infestations of sugar-high yellow jackets and the rather sudden turning of the vines toward a winter shut-down struck a dramatic about-turn in the condition of ripened clusters of late-hanging fruit.

We're not alone. And we're not in the business of grape farming for our bread and butter. Thousands of acres of vineyards throughout the region will be dropping fruit this week or leaving it on the vine to rot in place. It was one of those years. Mother Nature didn't play her usual game of ball in Northern California wine country. Some you win and some you lose and harvest 2011 will go down in local lore as a tough one.

Comments

[meloni]

oh dear, a sad one for sure. But still, somehow it makes 2010 and 2012 all the more precious. Here's to the Rivettis - a family of wine makers - it takes ALL of you to make it happen.
Perhaps an empty bottle with label for Dia de los Muertos?

[Frank Simpson]

Ouch! Sorry about the failure. Can't say I'm caught off guard by it all. We were up in Napa last week and--from what we could see from the road---things did not look good.