Vintage 2021: New Year's Eve

I can't believe that it is the last day of 2021. For this last blogpost of the year, I held back a gift from our friend and artist, Ginger Baker. It is a water color of our vineyard in the fall.

Ginger does water colors of our seaside village, Stonington, CT in which she captures the unique charms of where we live. You can find more of her artwork here: Coastal Art Studio
We wish everyone a safe and happy New Year!

Time Capsule Find in Our Home

I don't know why but at the end of the year I feel a great need to clean our home. (Japanese tradition) My husband calls my cleaning shuffling. For the past week, I've been reorganizing the many books that we have in our home by category and my efforts resulted in the discovery of this rare find:

I took a closer look at the cover of The Underground Wine Journal (Incorporating Rarities), Volume XIX, No. 3, 2000, and recognized the people in the picture! It was our friend, Charles Massoud and his two sons wearing orange t-shirts in their vineyard!
I emailed Charles the picture of the cover and he said he had no recollection of this journal. We had no recollection of where and when we bought this journal but inside the journal was a treasure trove of articles from 21 years ago!
I took a pause in my cleaning so that I could read the journal. Now to put this journal in a safe place to keep for another two decades or so.
References:
1.The Underground Wine Journal (Incorporating Rarities), Volume XIX, No. 3, 2000.

Oysters and 2017 Chardonnay Pétillant Naturel

Last night, my husband prepared oysters that our hunter had given us in two different ways. We had the oysters with a 2017 Chardonnay Pétillant Naturel that we made!

We were surprised at the bubbles coming from our pét nat! It went very well with the oysters!

Vintage 2021: Annual Cycle of Growth

Each year, we fill out a spread sheet with information regarding the Annual Cycle of Growth. We have been doing this since 2015 when the only thing that we had in the vineyard were a few hundred Chenin Blanc which was giving us fruit. Here is the complication since 2015:

I think that it is good to look at the cumulative annual cycle of growth to see what kind of trends can be observed. This helps in the planning of work in the vineyard. I might consider adding another column called "berry set".