Wednesday, December 15, 2010

2010 Harvest and Crush

Luckily Coates Vineyards had some wonderful help from our local bears in cleaning off all the grapes that we hadn't harvested ourselves this season. Rain came the 3rd weekend in September just before we started the pick. We left hanging the rain damaged Syrah, Zinfandel and Sangiovese grapes to be pruned off later with the canes. The bear in the photo had decided that the grapes were fine enough for fresh eating and is systematically working down the row, enjoying a lovely, peaceful Syrah afternoon.


The Merlot, Petite Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Trebbiano ripened well and their thicker skins withstood splitting and subsequent molding. We finished the harvest and crush with 70 new barrels of 2010 wines.

2 comments:

Joel Mielke said...

I'm not sure if I can wait until the 2010s are available, but this will make a great story to tell whenever I uncork a bottle of Coates.

Nicatnite said...

missed the 2010 harvest... but haven't missed one since!! see you in september!!