It’s beautiful out in the vineyard– we are seeing some awesome fall colors! Harvest is wrapping up and we are waiting on just a few grape varieties that require longer hang time, like Mouvedre, Sangiovese and Petite Sirah. We’ll soon finish with the late-harvest grapes and ice wines.
With winter just around the corner we are starting to slow down our vines in order to get them ready for bed. This means spreading out our watering, i.e. short bursts of water and longer intervals between.
We have already started to pull bird netting off the vines. This is also the time of year to cultivate our cover crop between the rows. We plow under the cover crop in the fall to add nutrients back to the soil. Then we turn around and plant next year’s cover crop, typically a drought-tolerant rye grass. In the Spring, cover crops help by soaking up excess water in the soil, preventing erosion and crowding out unwanted weeds. 
Overall, the 2016 harvest has been fantastic. Bud break came early and the vines followed through with this early schedule all the way through harvest. We saw high yields, in part due to optimal weather when the fruit was setting. This resulted in some cluster thinning to maintain the quality of the remaining crop. The late summer and early fall weather was perfect weather for ripening grapes allowing the grapes to gain more sugars and bright fruit acids. With temperatures hanging around the mid-60 degrees and with little-to-no rain or frost events, we had a smooth and timely harvest. Both Mike and Patrick enjoyed the favorable pace and agreed that the 2016 harvest shows some real potential for being a great vintage.