Our field crew picking olives off our Mission olive trees

With the harvest done and the vines gone dormant, we are getting ready for the holidays and harvesting the one crop we have remaining: our olive trees.

These olives will be harvested into the same half-ton fermenters that we use for our grape harvest, and then taken to a local olive press to be turned into oil. Paso Robles olive oil is gaining increasing recognition around the country for its distinctive olive terroir: oils that taste intensely of newly-mown grass.

One of our neighbors is family-owned olive oil producer Willow Creek Olive Ranch. They have received numerous accolades for their intensely aromatic oils. If you come out to visit Tablas Creek, we encourage you to stop there as well!

Syrah grapes in the press after fermentation

Whew! Despite the earliest onset of the rainy season in recent memory, the 2004 harvest is put to bed and happily fermenting away in the cellar. After a small rainstorm on October 17th (about an inch), the sun came back out and a coastal breeze picked up as we resumed harvesting on October 18th and 19th. Over the two days, we brought in several tons of ripe Mourvedre: about 25% of our total production. Several sections of the vineyard, though, weren't completely ripe, and we decided to wait, rather than pick grapes that we thought weren't quite ripe.

What we were expecting to be another small rainstorm October 20-21 turned out to be our first major Pacific storm of the season, dumping nearly 5 inches of rain on the vineyards. We were worried about the Mourvedre still left hanging, but when we got back out into the vineyards after the rain, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the grapes hadn't lost any sugar, and had in fact gained some concentration of acidity.

2003 Panoplie in the Cellar, awaiting the December 4th futures tasting

We resumed picking in earnest, after three days of sun and brisk winds, on October 25th, and picked the rest of the Mourvedre over the next three days. The harvest concluded with a small lot of Counoise picked November 1st. Fortunately, Mourvedre is a notoriously thick-skinned grape, and is not prone to rot or splitting. In fact, October is the rainiest month of the year in Chateauneuf du Pape, and Mourvedre is almost never harvested without some rain. In the cellar, the wines are fermenting happily and seem to be giving up color faster than normal. The aromas of the fermenting juice are wonderful.

Vineyard Manager David Maduena with a bin of Roussanne

Syrah fermenting in an open-top tank

Grenache grapes, just picked, await destemming

Harvest is proceeding under warm, sunny skies. Nearly everything has been brought into the winery, with the exception of a little Counoise and the bulk of the Mourvedre. The vintage appears to be a great one for both reds and whites, with relatively high acidity levels and tremendous minerality from the grapes' extended contact with the soils. Unlike a normal year, with budbreak in late April and harvest in September and October, 2004 had budbreak a full month early, but moderate temperatures have slowed the ripening, giving us exceptionally long hangtime. We will take a break from harvesting for what we expect is a small early rainstorm, scheduled to arrive the weekend of October 16th.

The harvest crew picks Roussanne grapes

Mourvedre grapes ripen on the vine, to be harvested probably in early October.

Winemaker Neil Collins punches down the syrah cap in an open-top tank.

Harvest is in full swing! After a brief lull at the beginning of the month, many of the varietals were ready to be picked. Unlike previous seasons, where the varietals ripened sequentially, this year’s weather patterns have allowed several different varietals to ripen at the same time, leading to an even greater flurry of activity than normal in the winery. As of Friday, September 17, all of the Viognier, Marsanne, Syrah, Vermentino, and Chardonnay had been harvested. About half of the Roussanne has been brought in at this point, and we anticipate the rest will be picked next week. On Friday we also harvested several bins of Grenache Noir, which will continue to come in over the next several days. Mourvèdre, Counoise and Grenache Blanc are still ripening.

Grenache grapes are prepared for the de-stemming machine.

The whites have been pressed, and the juice is fermenting in barrels and tanks. The Syrah grapes are first sent through the de-stemmer to remover their stems, and the juice then ferments on with the skins, in large open-top tanks. The cap of skins floats to the top of the juice, and must be punched down twice a day to keep the skins from drying out. As soon as fermentation is complete, the juice is pumped into a tank, and the skins are transferred to the bladder press, where the excess juice is extracted.

Roussanne grapes are laid to dry on beds of straw

We are again making a sweet dessert wine, called the Vin de Paille – literally, “wine of straw” – from some of our white varietals. The berries are laid out to dry on a bed of straw for several months, which concentrates the sugars and results in a sweet wine. All of the grapes for the Vins de Paille have been harvested, and are currently drying on straw beds in one of the greenhouses. As we did last year, we plan on making a 100% Roussanne Vin de Paille, as well as one from a blend of Grenache Blanc, Marsanne and Viognier.

Freshly harvested Viognier grapes inside the bladder press.

Winemaker Neil Collins measures the Brix (sugar content) of the Viognier using a refractometer.

Newly-stacked 1200 gallon foudres

Harvest has officially begun! The first grapes of 2004 came in at the beginning of the week. We began sampling the Viognier grapes in early August, testing the levels of sugar and acid, and brought in 8.3 tons on Monday, August 23rd. We pressed the grapes immediately, and the juice is now fermenting in neutral barrels.

The weather in the weeks preceding harvest has been unseasonably cool: days in the 80s and nights in the upper 40s and lower 50s. The warm spring, early flowering, and relatively cool summer weather have worked together to extend the growing season. When these characteristics converge, all signs point to a terrific harvest.

We expect to begin harvesting the rest of the varietals in a few weeks. We are predicting that Syrah will be next to come into the winery, probably beginning the second week of September, and that the remaining varietals should come in from mid-September through mid-October.

We’ve spent the past few weeks preparing the winery for the incoming deluge of grapes. We finished repairing the tanks damaged in the earthquake, braced the 1200-gallon oak foudres on custom-designed reinforced steel bases, and with the help of representatives from Seguin-Moreau, our barrelmaker, coated the foudres with linseed oil. To make more space in the barrel room, we also stacked the foudres on top of one another, like the foudres at Beaucastel.

While we still don’t have as many as Beaucastel, the stacked foudres still make an impressive display. The next time you're out at the winery, be sure to ask for a peek at the new setup!

We will continue to update this page as harvest progresses. Meanwhile, you can read a retrospective of the 2003 Harvest, the 2002 Harvest, the 2001 Harvest, or the 2000 Harvest.