Walking and Tasting Before Harvest
Though each partner has a different role in Ophir Wines, partners Craig, Mike
and Paul relish the frequent walk-taste-and-talk sessions they do together
in the days leading up to the crush. No question is more critical than when
to pick the grapes, and the answer, predictably, is a blend, combining art,
science and experience with a sense of what the vineyard is going to give us
and a vision of what we want to do with its gift.
Put simply, we pick the grapes when they are ripe. But ripeness depends on
many judgment calls that the partners make in relation to variety, condition,
balance of sugar and acid, and, most of all, flavor, as they walk and taste
and talk. And the judgment calls the partners make now from their daily walks,
and the post-walk lab tests before the harvest begins, will establish the style
and quality of wines that you will taste a year or two from now. Here are two
examples of what the partners encountered this year on their pre-harvest vineyard
walks.
Where is the tipping point for the Sauvignon Blanc in Craig’s vineyard,
where the fruit on the exposed west side of each row is turning quickly from
green to gold and will burn if not picked NOW, while the same fruit on the
sheltered east side of each row will develop a little more flavor if left for
a week? Likewise, the Syrah in Paul’s vineyard poses its typical riddle,
taunting us to choose between picking early to preserve acid essential for
fresh berry flavor and bright red color, or picking later, risking the loss
of delicate acid balance in the hope of creating complex, elegant flavor and
regal purple color.
As they walk, each partner picks a prescribed random sample of grapes, which
are inexplicably called berries. They crush the collective sample of berries
into a small bucket and pour a trickle onto the lens of a refractometer – a
hand-held instrument that looks like a cross between a spyglass and a microscope
-- to assess the sugar content. Whoever guesses closest to the actual number
gets temporary bragging rights. They look to see if the red wine berries are
blue or purple, if the stems are green or brown, the skin taut or shriveled.
And they taste the dusty, deliciously sweet fruit – the best test of
all and the only one that really counts. Last, they spit the seeds into their
hand to examine whether they’re green and still enveloped in protective
membrane, or brown and naked. Invariably, one of the three breaks the silence
and the spell with a question: “Can we get a crew in here tomorrow?” And
the harvest is on.
In our next newsletter we’ll follow the 2005 harvest from the vineyard
to the winery’s crusher-stemmer, the juice press and the laboratory.
From there we’ll give you an early assessment of the 2005 wines. In the
mean time, we look forward to seeing you October 1 at the third annual Auburn
Wine Festival.
À votre santé!
Craig, Mike and Paul
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