Making up ground at Stanton Vineyard

As I sit looking at a 70 degree late- August day, I have to think "Well, we could have hurricane-force winds" and wish my cohorts in Virginia and New York's Long Island the best.  Late October harvest dates in Oregon are definitely better than grapes blown all over the ground in August.

That said, with last week's even, perfectly mid-80s temperatures, we've finally caught back up to 2010.  Sort of.  We're on the 2010 pace from the standpoint of physiological progression - seeds are all hardened up, shoot tip growth has almost stopped, and the start of veraison is likely days, not weeks, away. The vines are switching over from growing more leaves to ripening the fruit.  From an overall heat unit standpoint, though, we're still behind 2010, and we're still on track for the coolest overall vintage in decades. 

It's never boring making Pinot Noir here.  I can't imagine anywhere else in the U.S. where we can get completely different seasons every year and still produce wines with fantastic depth and complexity.  We are so lucky, we can even go out foraging for Morels while we wait for the Pinot Noir to mature.

STANTON VINEYARD

I spent some time recently in down in the Lorane Valley (SE of Eugene) at Stanton Vineyard.  Charlie Stanton's fruit is truly beautiful and unique.  The vineyard sits up on top of a little knoll with fantastic clear views from SE all the way to the Coast Range (read "All day sunshine").  The soils are rocky with sandstone subsoils - truly different than all our other Pinot Noir sites.

Here are some pictures of the vineyard right after the final hedging of the year:

Note how nice and moderately sized the clusters are?  The higher elevation pushed bloom date at this site into a bit of sketchier weather, which led to a poorer set than other places where we're dropping literally 1/2 of the fruit on the ground.  What does the lighter set mean?  To some extent, it just means there's less thinning to do at Stanton than elsewhere. As an added bonus, the clusters are a little looser, reducing disease pressure later in the season.

For a last inspiring, sunny photo, here's a shot looking West from the top of the Stanton Vineyard.  Smaller vines in the foreground are new plantings that'll start bearing a crop in 2012
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