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Happy New Year!
It’s New Years in the vineyard! They’re growing! Every winter they look deader than dead and when it’s time for bud break, I always have this momentary fear: “What if they don’t wake up this time?”
But they did. First the Petit Verdot – go figure. Then the Merlot and Cabernet Franc. And now the Cabernet Sauvignon. The official kick-off of the 2007 vintage and yet another excuse to open the sparkling wine!
Our Winemaker, Geoff Gorsuch, hasn’t had the chance to pop the bubbly since he’s been up in the middle of the night twice so far to protect the tender new shoots from frost. This is when you wish you were a hillside grower! Damage begins at 32 degrees F. so wind machines, with large propellers, are used to mix the warm air above with the colder air that’s settling on the vineyard. For severe frost, we use smudge pots – some wineries call them “vineyard heaters” 
which burn propane to warm the vines. With any luck, we’ll start getting some much needed rain, to replenish our about 10- inch deficit and to chase away the frost. Every year tells its own story.
But these delicate, pink and green buds – that’s truly a miracle that happens right in front of our eyes every spring. It’s better than New Years, such visible signs of renewal. Makes me want to stop and think awhile – to count my blessings.
All of which reminds me – Happy Passover! Crack open a bottle made by our good friends and neighbors, Hagafen Cellars, one of the most delicious ways to keep kosher! Happy Easter! Pull the cork on a bottle of Goosecross and enjoy (we both make sparkling wine, by the way)!
Welcome, vintage 2007! Here’s to a very good year!
Another Year, Another Harvest…
The feeling is anything but that. No matter how many harvests I witness, there’s nothing like the feeling when that first box of jewel-like grape clusters arrives at the winery. It still makes my heart race and tears spring to my eyes. Don’t know why. But I’d venture to guess that most true, hands-on winemakers feel the same way (actually, maybe they’re crying in anticipation of all the weeks of 24/7 work ahead rather than out of sentiment!). The vintage doesn’t start with the crush. A whole lot of their time and effort over most of the past year has been toward the goal of producing a great next vintage. Of course, they’ve got to take care of the wines they made last crush, but the next vintage starts calling pretty soon after the last one was put to bed in barrels.
At least for a small producer like Goosecross, the Winemaker is also the Vineyard Manager, and he gets really up-close and personal with the crop. He’s been walking the vine rows repeatedly, starting last winter with pruning, and then on to cultivating, shoot thinning, cluster thinning, checking for nutrient deficiencies and pest problems, more thinning, and he’s still walking now, checking the sugar and acid, tasting. He has a relationship with those vines.
And harvest is his one chance the whole year to get it right. You know if you make beer, or almost anything else, you can order the ingredients and get into production when it’s convenient. Not wine. When the grapes are ready, you’d better be in the mood! He needs to make the right decisions every step of the way from fresh grapes to wine and it all happens rather quickly. Once the wine is made, its basic character is pretty much formed and the goal is to sculpt and hone – not to do damage control.
We’ve started with a bang this year! 71/2 tons of Sauvignon Blanc Tuesday the 12th, 8 tons more on Wednesday, Chenin Blanc on Thursday and Cabernet from Howell Mountain on Friday! Literally, tons of work! We’ve got a play-by-play of the Goosecross crush if you check our Harvest Calendar, which is updated regularly. I think you’ll be surprised to see how quickly grape juice converts to wine, which is why it’s 24/7, and leads to the key phrase for surviving the crush: “Stock up. It takes a whole lot of beer to make good wine!”
