Bob Haas with a newly- harvested Syrah cluster

Harvest 2003 has begun! The weather has turned hot after a warm summer and a brief cool period in the end of August. We've seen temperatures over 100 much of the weeks of 9/15 and 9/23, and the prospects for harvest look excellent. The heat has concentrated the juices, and the aromas from the newly-pressed juice are wonderful. We brought in our first lots of grapes on Monday, September 15th. Grenache Blanc was the first to come in, and was quickly followed by some lots of Viognier at the beginning of the week. Towards the end of the week, we brought in some of the Roussanne and some of the Syrah.

A bin of newly harvested Syrah

At Tablas Creek Vineyard all harvesting is done by hand into small picking bins in the early morning to take advantage of the cool temperatures. The grapes are then consolidated into 1/2 ton bins and immediately transferred to our estate winery.

Grenache Blanc berries drying on straw for vin de paille

This year, we are experimenting with a vin de paille, or straw wine. The white berries (here it is Grenache Blanc) are dried on a bed of straw for several months, which concentrates the sugars, without need for either botrytis (a form of "noble rot" that produces sweet wines in northern climates) or freezing temperatures (to produce ice crystals, which can be removed from the juice and make the Alsatian, German, or Canadian "ice wine"). The end result, we hope, will be our first sweet dessert wine.

Bob Haas at the sorting table, with Syrah

Gianluca Miccolis and Meghan Dunn at the sorting table, before the Syrah is destemmed

The Syrah bunches are first sorted, and then descend into a Vaslin Bucher de-stemming machine which uses inertia to pulled the grapes from their stems.

The inside of the destemmer, which removes the stems from red grapes before the berries are put in tanks

The grapes are then moved to a holding bin from which they are pumped into a stainless steel tank to undergo fermentation, using naturally occurring yeasts. The stems are collected from the de-stemming machine and composted for later use as fertilizer in the vineyard.

Syrah in the Press

Harvest is continuing nicely, with a slightly cooler spell in the first week of October allowing us to finish the pressing and testing of some of the first lots harvested. We've completed the harvest of most of our whites (everything but a bit of our Roussanne) as well as most of our Syrah. We're close to harvesting the Grenache and Counoise, while the Mourvedre looks as though it will be a few more weeks.

After the Syrah has fermented for a time on its skins in the open top fermenters (usually 2-3 weeks) we press the berries to keep the wine from becoming overly tannic. The berries are dmped into the press, and their juice drains into a pan. It will then be transferred into tanks to complete its fermentation.

Using the hydrometer to measure density of Grenache Blanc

In addition, we are testing the wines daily to track their fermentation. The chief measurement of the progress of fermentation is density. One way to monitor the progress of fermentation is to measure the density of the juice with a hydrometer. As the sugar is converted to alcohol, the density of the liquid (determined principally by the amount of dissolved sugar in the juice) decreases. The hydrometer measures the density, from which we can calculate how much of the sugar has been turned into alcohol. Here we measure the density of a sample of Grenache Blanc.

Newly harvested Viognier bunches

When our white varietals are harvested, in this case Viognier, they are introduced into our bladder press to undergo a light pressing. The resulting juice is pumped into stainless steel tanks or French oak barrels to begin fermentation. The Viognier, Marsanne, and Grenache Blanc ferment in stainless steel, to preserve their crispness and brightness, while we ferment our Roussanne half in stainless steel (to emphasize the pear and citrus characteristics) and half in barrel (to emphasize the rich, honeyed characteristics)

A fermenting barrel of Roussanne

Sampling fermenting Roussanne

Syrah, ready for harvest

The week of October 6th has heated up again, and we've been harvesting the last of our Syrah, as well as Grenache and Counoise, all week. These varietals are first destemmed, and then pumped into stainless steel to ferment. We are also experimenting with a tank of carbonic maceration on our Counoise, where we lay the whole clusters gently into a tank, and then seal the tank to ferment each berry separately. A traditional method with the Gamay grape in Beaujolais, we believe that this process could highlight the fruit and spice character of the Counoise.

The vineyard crew harvests Syrah

Newly harvested Syrah, awaiting weighing

Syrah stems, post-destemming

Syrah bunches are moved to open top fermenters

A grapevine after harvest

Harvest is over! We picked the last of the Mourvèdre (always the last varietal to ripen) and had the grapes in the winery on October 29, just two days before the start of the winter rains! The vines are now empty of grapes, and awaiting winter dormancy. [Editorial note: with 5 consecutive nights below 25 degrees Fahrenheit between November 21 and 25, the vines are fully dormant].

Winery intern Gianlucca Miccolis stomps straw-dried Mourvedre grapes.

In addition to our normal treatment of Mourvedre, we dried some lots in the greenhouse on straw beds. These grapes spent about 3 weeks ripening further on the straw before they were brought into the winery to ferment. Because the fruit was much drier than our other grapes, the cap of skins didn't have enough juice to float on. As a result, the manual punch-down tool was useless, and we had to resort to stomping the grapes the old-fashioned way - with our feet!

We will make a red wine from this juice as a counterpart to our white Vin de Paille, made from Grenache Blanc, Viognier, and Roussanne.

Roussanne grapes drying on straw mats in an empty nursery greenhouse.

Marc Perrin and Bob Haas celebrate the end of harvest.

You can also read a retrospective of the 2000 Harvest, 2001 Harvest, or 2002 Harvest.