Vintage 2018: Post Harvest Recap

Our 2018 harvest is now safely fermenting away. We have already bottled our 2018 Auxerrois! We had very good luck with last year's attempt at Pét-nat (Méthode Ancestrale) so, we've turned our entire 2018 Chardonnay harvest, all 6 gallons into Pét-nat and also another 6 gallons of Chenin Blanc as well. Our Cabernet Sauvignon is fermenting away to become a rosé and our Cabernet Franc has finished fermenting.
It seems like a long time ago, this time last year, when we were experiencing a beautiful Indian summer that lasted way into December only to culminate in a cold snap just in time for the Christmas holidays. New Year 2018 brought a weather event that the weather forecasters called a Bomb Cyclone.
There was a warming of temperatures in February and for a fleeting moment, we thought that we could begin our pruning chores, but March brought a month of storms that seemed to occur once a week for the entire month! The rains and the cooler weather during the spring lead to a delayed budbreak in the vineyard.
Summer brought heat like we'd never experienced before with little rain, so we needed to deploy the irrigation system in early July. On many days, the feel like temperatures hit the high 90's with occasional feel like temperature exceeding 100 degrees! The summer heat wave, while hard on vineyard workers, were great for the grapes and the Brix began climbing!
Alas, the end of summer brought rain, rain, rain like we'd never seen before and that was devastating to our harvest. In keeping with tracking the important phenological events in our vineyard, 2018 gives us more data points:

There are still things to do in the vineyard to button it up for the end of the season. And the rainy days keep on coming!