Harvest is in full swing at Running Brook. It started this past Monday with a very small quantity of Pinot Noir which will be made into a single barrel of red wine. Tuesday and Wednesday we brought in close to three tons of another Pinot Noir (a different clone of Pinot which is well suited for a rosé style wine). Thursday it was 4 tons of Pinot Gris. Phenomenal Pinot Gris I should say. Timing couldn’t have worked any better because now… here comes the rain, apparently lots of it. Most of the other grapes still on the vine (Chardonnay, Merlot, Cab.Franc, Vidal, etc.) are 2 to 4 weeks away from being fully ripe. Hopefully after the rain we’ll get a good amount of sun for the final stretch of this year's growing season. It feels like this week we were hit with the first wave of harvest. Now things will settle for a few days and then the second wave (a much bigger one) will be upon us.
Now it’s time for me to get to work and do my best to turn this New England juice into great wine. It's not easy with many late-night hours at the winery after a good day's of work at my real job. But I love it and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to be doing this.
I’ll leave you with some fresh Pinot Gris pics…
In the vineyard, just picked...
Cool overnight temperature, very cold fruit... perfect for preserving flavor and aroma
At the crushpad ready to go into the press
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