2020 First Harvest Auxerrois---Part 1

We had our first harvest on September 17, 2020. We harvested our Auxerrois grapes which so far has always been our first variety to ripen. One of the parameters that we look for is the value of the titratable acids (TA). On September 8, 2020 when we took the Brix, pH and titratable acid information of the Auxerrois and Chardonnay, we saw that the TA was 8.2, so we knew that harvest time was approaching. Since we want to make a balanced wine, we aim to keep the TA at a level which we feel is appropriate. Sometimes, that means that the sugar level is not quite as high as we would like it to be but we take what Mother Nature gives us.
This year, we had almost 3 rows of Auxerrois to harvest. This may sound like a slam dunk but our rows are 800 feet long so it is not trivial. Harvest time was set at 9 a.m. but thankfully some of our friends arrived before that time to help us lift the nets so that we could access the grapes. The day began as a moderately cool day but by the time we were half way down the first row, the sun came out and it was a pleasant day to harvest grapes.
Here are photos of the people who came to help us harvest the Auxerrois:

We finished harvesting the grapes around 3 p.m. We are working with the crew at Jonathan Edwards Winery to process our grapes. We got to the winery 10 minutes before closing time and Jonathan was kind enough to help us weigh the pallets and put the grapes in the press. We agreed that we would convene on Friday morning to press the harvest. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Auxerrois harvest on this blogsite!

Vintage 2020: Heading into Autumn

This past week has seen temperatures moderate from the 80's into the 70's and as one of our friends remarked, it seems like Nature turned off the summer switch after Labor Day. All of our various grape varieties are looking really good.

We have netting to put over a few more rows of our Chenin Blanc which is the last of the white varieties to ripen.

Recently, on September 8, 2020 we took some samples of the Auxerrois and the Chardonnay:

Variety	# of Berries	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	80	18	3.05	8.2 g/L
Chardonnay	40	19	2.85	10.4 g/L

As a comparison, when we took these numbers on September 14, 2019, they came in at:

Variety	# of Berries	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	140	18	3.06	13.5 g/L
Chardonnay	44	18.6	2.86	14.7 g/L

The two tables show that the Brix and the pH are tracking similarly but that the titratable acids are much lower this year than last. My guess is that the hot summer this year must have induced the malic acid to respire more than it did in 2019.
The next few weeks have us planning for harvest and putting netting on our Chenin Blanc as quickly as humanly possible for 2 people.

Auxerrois in Our Vineyard

Our Auxerrois is beginning to ripen. We have learned that these grapes are very susceptible to too much sun. In past years, we have had a lot of sun burnt grapes so this year we tried a new tactic and left the leaves on the west side of the canopy. Still, there were bunches that were exposed to this year's record number of heat waves. Here is what the Auxerrois grapes look like.

Yesterday we took the first of our numbers to determine how far along it is. It takes a while to get a statistical sampling because the Auxerrois is netted, but fortunately, we use clothes pins so although it is a bit of an impediment, what needs to be undone, needs to be done. We gathered 80 berries from 3 rows of Auxerrois, picking berries from the top, middle and bottom of the cluster as well as berries that seemed to be more advanced in ripening and some from clusters that appeared to be behind the ripening curve. After picking the berries, we did the following tests and here are the numbers we came up with. We also took the juice and sampled the juice for the flavors. It's coming along. Harvest could occur perhaps within the next 10 days.

Status of Our Various Grapes

Harvest time is quickly approaching and we are trying our best to keep up with the ripening grapes. We are still in the process of netting our grapes. So far, we have put the nets on all of the Auxerrois, half of the Chardonnay, all of the Cabernet Sauvignon (2 rows) and all of the Barbera (1 row).
Our Chenin Blanc is almost half of our production and it is a little behind in the ripening trajectory so we are just now getting around to putting up the netting on those grapes.

Variety	September
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Franc
Barbera