Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2010 August Veraison

Hello,

It seems the Pinot Noir just needed a nice weekend in the sun. Sure enough, we spied the first "Pink" berries of the season on Monday morning, August 23rd. Yeah, Ernie likes that. Typically, we see the first color change or “Veraison” by the 15th of August. In the grand scheme of things we appear to still be behind the "average" (a mediocre word at best), but are making up a little lost time.  

Even though we see the encouraging signs of harvest coming our way, there is No Financial Way (NFW) that these vines can ripen this much fruit. So we thin them down to a reasonable crop load, and for us that is about one bottle of wine per vine. It is tough love.

Here we are looking at Syrah, and we are leaving just about 6 clusters per vine. That means we are cutting off the other 18 clusters, and the wings from the hearty souls that remain. That's a pretty tough selection process.

The Pinot Noir harvest is still on track to begin in mid-October, day 285 to be exact. Regarding the Syrah and Viognier, well they might make nice Christmas gifts this year.

Kindest Regards,

Ernie