Harvest update: near full veraison

On June 21—the summer solstice—the vineyard is driven by a restless, explosive energy. In the weeks following fruit set, the vine canopy surges forward, wrapping the rows in a dense wall of foliage. But in the production of fine estate wine, abundance is not the objective. Exceptional character often begins with the art of subtraction….

The red blocks have ripened tremendously in the past two weeks. Having finally reached veraison by the middle-end of August (not without dropping a fair bit of the remaining green fruit and shoulders from the biggest vines and clusters) — the reds are tasting delightful — and our Merlot is clocking 22 Brix, right on…

“Wow!” It’s the only word to describe the pace of ripening this year. After a seemingly endless string of warm weather throughout July, veraison has started earlier than I think in any year since we started making wine in 2007. The Merlot is already about 40% colored, perhaps more or less in some blocks, with…

We installed three large vegetable boxes near our well in the vineyard this year and planted tomatoes and two kinds of peppers, both generally popular in traditional Hungarian cuisine — sweet paprika peppers (for Chicken Paprikas) and gypsy peppers, a brilliantly neon green small pepper that can be eaten with dips, stuffed, or used as…