Harvest Part 1

So I have been gone for awhile again. Life has been crazy getting some final 2007 wines put to rest in bottle (Please come see these ones in the fall or winter) and getting ready for the new harvest season.

To start, we have hired a new assistant winemaker to help Tarara strive for the stars with even more experience, passion and knowledge. We have hired Jon Boyle from the Niagara Region of Canada. he also brings to us winemaking experience from British Columbia and the Margaret River region of Australia. We know Jon will help us achieve our goals of being the top wine destination for all of you.

The 2008 harvest kicked off on Tuesday with the picking of a small block of Pinot Gris. With the nature of the vintage we will be harvesting each grape variety in multiple passes. We had a rainy and cool spring and wet June and July. This has lead to some interesting challenges the we will face in creating another great vintage. Even though we know we still will. There was uneven fruit set and there will be uneven ripening, hence the multiple picking and there will also be a huge amount of sorting of the fruit both in the field and in the winery. We have also kept our crop load to a minimal this year to get the best out of the fruit we select. The up side is that we did have the month of August which had moderate day temperatures with cooler nights, was bone dry and had no humidity. This has definitely given us a boost in the quality of the fruit in the vineyard and will help else with prolonged hang time to ripen all elements of the remaining fruit.

The sole tonne of Pinot Gris that we have harvested this week came off before our two days of rain. On receiving the fruit it was almost pristine. The berries were just on the verge of wanting to go south and had we not brought them in before the rain, they probably would have. The resulting fruit is showing lovely tropical and honey type characters early on in the juice. The Brix was at a happy 21.5 meaning approximately 12.5% alcohol is the target. The best part of this fruit is that it also maintained great acidity meaning the early pick of Pinot Gris is a winemakers dream. We can stand back and let the vineyard express itself. It is only three barrels thus far which it will be fermented in. They are all french oak and are a mix of 1,2 and 3 year old barrels. A first for Tarara on this lot is that we are allowing the wine to go through a "natural" fermentation meaning we are allowing the yeast on the fruit from the vineyard to do the fermentation as apposed to adding commercial yeast. We will be watching closely to see the benefits and or disadvantages of the natural yeast of our vineyard to determine if this will be a new aim for us at Tarara. Our hope: to create a more complex wine with a round mouth feel while respecting nature and what it can offer us. We especially are looking at more ways to express the vineyard that we are incredibly proud of.

So until the next exciting day of harvesting fruit I hope all of you enjoy a glass of Tarara's current offerings. Cheers.