Approach to the First Harvest

It’s great to walk a vineyard with a man who’s been farming grapes for nearly 50 years. It’s clear that he absolutely loves every part of it, being outside, analyzing the plants, using the hands for work. It is such a blessing to have Jim Barbour shepherding these vines. This time of year, there’s a lot of grape tasting. It’s just days away from the 2025 pick. It has been a cooler vintage and it’s going to be a long fruit hang. These young vines are happy and are holding up great. Here and there you’ll see the first leaves signaling that the fall color change is not too far off. For this first significant vintage, we have just one cordon with a spur for a second to grow out and hold even more shoots the next year. Some warm dry days are on the horizon, just low to mid 80’s but it’s an improvement from the recent temps. The head-trained Syrah in block 1 and the Clone 412 Cab Sauv stand out as already showing signs of good complexity of flavor. These are my first impressions of the near-finished fruit and there’s so much that these vines have yet to tell us about the wines they’ll someday become.