Vintage 2018: End of Summer

Doesn't it seem that when children go back to school, summer has ended? Mother Nature doesn't think so. This last week in August we had temperatures in the 90's with feel like temperatures either close to 100 or exceeding 100 degrees.
There are still many chores to do so we were fortunate that our friends came to help us this week during a time when it is infinitely better to be in the cool and comfort of the air conditioned indoors. We limited the work day to the morning hours and hid out during the afternoon scorching heat.
There is always the bad news, good news aspect to such a heat wave. Difficult for people to work in the vineyard, but good for ripening grapes.

This is the first year that we have red varieties that set fruit, our Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. We had no idea when véraison would be for these red varieties. We noticed that one precocious vine of our Cabernet Sauvignon was changing color on August 25th.
Today, when we went to the vineyard, we noticed that at least 80% of the Cabernet Sauvignon, pictured on the right were changing color! We were at véraison! Checking the Brix of one of the grapes showed that it was at 11.
Then we looked over at our Cabernet Franc and it too was at véraison with Brix at 13. The Cabernet Franc is shown below:

Our Chardonnay is also at 13 Brix. Our Chenin is lagging behind!