We got all the Selene grapes in by Tuesday October 25th this year. The last cabernet pick was Stagecoach Vineyards. It came in at 9 tons and it looks good in the tank. It sure is nice to have it all in the barn. We had some rain yesterday, and we are expecting more tonight. [...]

It’s the last day of picking for Selene. We will be picking the Stagecoach Cabernet Sauvignon from Block C-1. It looks as if it’s good timing, since we have some rain coming in, just slight showers. The weather has definitely cooled down a little bit, nights are getting cold, and the days are getting shorter, [...]

Today I spent some time up at Stagecoach vineyards looking at the grapes. They are making progress, but they aren’t there yet. So far the weather is still on our side. It’s cool and cloudy today, but no rain. We are supposed to warm up again and get some sunshine, with no big threat of [...]

We picked the Bressler Cabernet this morning. It was pretty fun. It was the first time I’ve seen David Abreu’s crew night picking. I arrived there about 6:30am, when it’s still really dark out, so I knew I’d get there before they started picking. I was driving down South Crane and I see these big [...]

A lot of things have happened since my last entry, but let me start with yesterday. We picked 9 tons of wonderful Blue Oak Cabernet Sauvignon for Selene on Tuesday. We crushed that at Laird. The picking went really well, the fruit looked good and came off clean, not too many leaves. We racked a [...]

It’s early in the morning, and I wanted to catch up on the past couple of days. On Wednesday we picked Cab Franc and Petit Verdot at Bressler Vineyards. The fruit looks good. It’s been a nice year for those vines. We picked just under 2 tons for the Franc, and a little under ½ [...]

Stuff is really starting to come together. I went out to look at a couple of vineyards for Clients this morning. One on top of Mt. Veeder and then over to Palmaz. They have a nice big ranch out there, so Tina (their winemaker) and I walked the whole vineyard. We probably have 3 or [...]

I got to sleep in this morning! I was waiting for Whitney Fisher, from Fisher Vineyards, to call me and I knew it wouldn’t be before 8:30am. She had some things to do early this morning at the winery including pump-overs, loading Chardonnay grapes into the press, and putting some Chardonnay juice down to barrels. [...]

It was Selene’s first red grape pick for the year. We picked at Frediani Family Vineyards up in Calistoga. We picked Merlot and Cab Franc today. Selene’s been getting this Merlot from Frediani since the 1997 harvest, and the Cab Franc since 2002. Both sites are really nice, not too far from the Silverado Trail [...]