Vintage 2025: Last Harvest of 2025

On Sunday, December 7, we brought in our last harvest for 2025, our late harvest chenin blanc. When we went to the vineyard, we saw a bit more devastation as we got to the middle of the vineyard. In spite of the damage, we were able to harvest 6 lugs of organza bagged botrytized chenin blanc and brought it back to our winery space at Taugwonk Spur.

In the past, we have taken out the grapes from the wedding bags to put into the basket press in a mash bag, but this year, we put the grapes into the press, bag and all. By doing this, we cut out one step and got the process of pressing going.

We were able to fit two lugs worth of organza bags before we began the press. We learned from using the press last year that the blocks that go into the press must be paired properly since they were of various sizes.

The juice that came out of the press was slightly viscous and golden yellow in color. We took the Brix reading with a refractometer by taking 5 mL of juice and diluting it with an equal amount of water. The Brix was 32 degrees!
We let the juice settle in the glass carboy and on December 9, we rehydrated the yeast to inoculate the juice. My husband did some research into the proper yeast to use in fermenting a late harvest, high Brix juice so this year, we are trying SM102. This yeast is a slow fermenter and is easily stopped when the alcohol levels reach 12%.
The photo on the right shows that the fermentation is going!

We will continue to monitor the fermentation during the days to come.

Dinner with Friends and a Trio of Wines

Harvest is nearly over and it's time to have friends over who have helped us from the beginning of our adventure in grape growing and wine making. Mary and Barry help us every year with all kinds of tasks in the vineyard and we wanted to have them over to celebrate. My husband recently found a recipe that he wanted to try called veal chops dijonnaise, a Jacques Pepin recipe. (Happy 90th birthday Jacques Pepin!)
Our friends came over with goodies to share. The wines that we were going to pair with the meal included a Dehours & Fils, Terre de Meunier Extra Brut Champagne, 2020 Domaine Le Flaive Puligny-Montrachet and a Robert Foley 2019 Napa Valley Petite Sirah.

Without a doubt, champagne and oysters are an incomparable pairing. The champagne did not disappoint. The pinot meunier used in making this champagne was delicious! We detected a hint of sweetness which went very well with the two types of oysters that we had which were Duxbury oysters from Cape Cod and Malpeque oysters from Prince Edward Island. My husband left enough of the brine in the cup that made for a gustatory experience!
The Domaine Le Flaive served double duty as a pairing for the oysters as well as a pairing for the veal chop. We also paired the veal chop with the Robert Foley petite sirah and interestingly, both the white and the red wine worked with the chop.

We had an intermezzo of salad that Mary made which was a mixture of interesting greens including baby water cress with walnuts. It was a perfect palate cleanser. For dessert, we had poached pears.

We enjoyed the Dehours champagne so much, I did a little research online.
Jerome Dehours took over the domaine in 1996. He oversees some 14.5 hectares of vines spread over 42 different vineyards in the Southern Marne, located on the left bank of the Vallée de la Marne, at the crossing point of the Flagot river. The vines are grown on clay and sand on a chalky subsoil. The Terre de Meunier is a blend grapes pinot meunier from two slopes called Patis de Cerseuil and Les Vignes dans le Bois.
We liked this champagne very much!
References:
1. Thatcher's Wine.
2. Dehours & Fils Champagne.

2022 Passionfruit Estate Barbera

In 2022, our red varieties were coming mature enough to give us a fair amount of fruit to harvest. The cabernet sauvignon came in at around 1300 pounds, the cabernet franc at 1200 pounds and the barbera at 600 pounds.
In 2022 we were able to make a barrel of cabernet sauvignon, a barrel of cabernet franc and a red blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and barbera. There was still a little barbera left after making the blend.
We sent the wines to be tested for alcohol level and had a bit left to fill a half bottle of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and barbera.
Recently, we brought out the barbera so that we could taste it. This wine has not been filtered or fined and the color was a clear garnet in the glass. The aromas were muted but the flavor was one of cranberries and sour cherries. It paired perfectly with the classic Margarita pizza that we ordered from one of our favorite pizza places, The Back Door in the Velvet Mill.
Barbera is not a grape that has a lot of phenolics, but it does have a lot of acid. The sugars in the barbera accumulate quickly so that it offsets the acid. Our 2022 barbera had these numbers:

Variety	Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA g/L	Lbs	Gals
Barbera
	10/21/2022	22.5	3.00	10.0	~600	48

We are hoping to bottle this barbera in the coming days. Stay tuned for an email from Passionfruit Estates annoucing the release of this 2022 barbera!

Vintage 2025: Late Harvest Noble Rot Chenin Blanc

We still have one more harvest to go. It is our late harvest noble rot chenin blanc. We bagged half a row of chenin blanc on October 16 with organza wedding bags and to ensure that the bagged grapes are further protected, we enclosed the bagged grapes in netting. We have been doing this since 2019 when we found out that conditions on our land are conducive to producing noble rot during the fall.
We have two clones of chenin blanc in our vineyard. Only one of our two clones of chenin blanc will be affected with the noble rot. Clone 982, which is an ENTAV clone from France is the one that the Botrytis cinerea infects and not clone FPS-1.
We have been monitoring the sugar levels in the grapes and as of yesterday, November 21, the Brix is a 29 degrees. A comparison of the grapes from November 1 and November 21 shows that the grapes are coming along:

This year, we have been having a problem with some wild animal, most likely raccoons that have been bold enough to make their way into the netting and eating the bagged grapes. On November 1, we came to the vineyard to check on the grapes and found empty bags littering the ground.

Besides raccoons, there may yet be another wild animal eating our grapes. This time, the bags are just gnawed at and left still hanging on the vine.

So, at this point, it is a race between sugar accumulation and wild animal devastation!