2010 Harvest. What's that all about?

Winemaker update for y'all (just got back from Texas).  I think most of you may have heard but we have had about the coolest Summer on record in Napa.  That is until a massive heatwave at the end of August and then another one this last week.  Its kind of a catch 22 situation, if its too cool and foggy you have to pull leaves around the fruit to help it dry out and avoid molds.  Yet if you pull the leaves and then you get a ridiculous heat wave the fruit gets fried and can turn to raisins.

The "Merus" block has been saved from this predicament by Larry's quick action with the water valves.  Sadly, Midorya Hills fell victim to the heat spikes this year.  The good news is the damage to Midoriya seems to only be an issue with the quantity, not the quality of the fruit.  For some unknown reason the fruit that was exposed to the sun just decided to die off.  Hopefully what is left will have twice the flavor.  We will see.  The Berry Lane Chardonnay also shows the raisining effect with most of the fruit in good shape but some of the exposed berries turned scary black.

Our handy de-stemmer machine takes the grapes off the stems and leaves the raisins behind.  So, other than the lack of fruit we should be in excellent position for an amazing year when it comes to quality.

TED