2008 Pre-harvest report
Posted in Uncategorized, Bishop Creek Vineyard by Jeremy Saville
Due to some technical difficulties, it’s been a while since I posted on our blog. Thankfully and not without some frustration I am back on and in full blogging form.
2008 has been a very challenging vintage so far. Bud break was almost a month late. We were blessed with great growing conditions during bloom and were able to make up some lost ground.
Last year veraison (a term used to describe when the grapes first begin to change color ) was officially declared on August 10th, 9 days later than 2006 (a vintage with near perfect growing conditions). This year I witnessed the very beginnings of color change on August 15th, which was the first of three days in a row of 100 plus degree weather. Pinot Noir does not like temperatures that high. Generally the plants will shut down and go into self preservation mode when it’s that hot.
The near perfect bloom conditions gave us nice uniform clusters and plenty of them. With a late Indian summer we’ll end up with what could prove to be an epic vintage.
The 2007 Pinot Noirs are aromatically beautiful, elegant and concentrated. We are so happy with the wines that we’ve decided to make three different reserve blends in addition to our regular Barrel Selection.
We’re just a few weeks out from bottling the 2007 Start Your Own Winery Pinot Noir. And just one week out from there before we start the new vintage.