Bill Kremer, Olsen Family Vineyard’s expert wine maker gives us his take on the harvest so far:

The harvest began on October 1, 2008 with both Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir harvesting. The PG came from the NW section of our vineyards ZigZag and East section of Entropy block 3, both were 146 clones. The PN came from Entropy block 3 and block 2, both were clone 777. Fruit quality and chemistry were great. We picked at pretty much ideal analysis numbers; fruit flavors and color were also ideal. Fermentations are progressing on them and the PN should be done fermenting by the end of this week.

We continued harvesting on October 12th, and throughout this week. Most of this harvesting has been PN from Entropy with grapes from all three blocks. We will complete harvest of Entropy PN by Saturday. Also this week were the harvests of PN clone 23 for a rose’, and PG clone 3 for a sweet wine.

We anticipate the remaining PN and PG vineyards will be harvested by next week, with Chardonnay possibly coming in after that.

Overall I am excited about the quality of fruit and feel it will translate to very high quality wine for 2008. Yields were slightly lower than expected from the summer estimation, but with young vines it is hard to accurately estimate. The weather has cooperated nicely since the brief wet spell we had in early October. We have had quite nice mild moderate weather for the grapes to accumulate sugar and moderate the acidity naturally.

Thanks,

Bill Kremer