At Burrell School Vineyards, there’s the sound of corks popping in celebration of the end of harvest. There’s also the quiet sighs of relief after what has been a nail-biting season, with overall reduced yields. Anne and Dave are very grateful to their Santa Clara vineyard partners for supplying them with Cabernet a-plenty for the Old School wine. Not to mention the old vine Mataro and Carignane that will go into Class Reunion, a perennial fave. Here’s Dave’s homework assignment: testing the brix on the Blake Vineyard Carignane.
Friday, Nov 4, was a marathon day of picking at both Luchessi, in the Saratoga Hills, and the Blake Vineyard, in Morgan Hill. With rain imminent, it was do or die! Those grapes were not going to weather another spell of wet and cold. It was time to pick!
Anne’s yeast prep chores are done for the season, while much work still remains to be done in the cellar, with punchdowns, then pressing and putting the last of the wine into barrels.
Here’s what Burrell School brought in from Halloween thru November 4:
Mataro from Machado Creek, .7 ton
DellaMaggiore Cabernet Sauvignon, 2.3 tons
DellaMaggiore Petite Sirah, 1.1 tons
Luchessi Cabernet Sauvignon, 2.2 tons
Blake Carignane (old vine), 4.5 tons
Huge congratulations to Mark and crew for providing us with high quality fruit here at the school house and at the Pichon Vineyard in a very challenging year. And more thanks for collaborating with our outside growers after the October rains in order to bring in clean, quality fruit.
Dave is especially happy with the Brix and chemistry #s for the Luchessi Cab. Hooray! Great stuff.
Overall, the total tonnage is down 30% of expectations. Lots of new barrels unfilled and a whole lot of yeast to store until next year.
All the fermenting bins are in the cellar rather than out on the crush pad. All wine gone through fermentation at this point has finished dry.
But, as Anne always notes at this time of year, just because all the grapes have been picked doesn’t mean harvest is over. “We’re done when every last drop of new wine is stored in barrels,” she says. And that’s a ways off yet.
Here’s to the finale of a very trying, down-to-the-wire harvest, but a good one, nonetheless.