Sunshine, Finally
Working starts to make you wonder where
the fruits of what I do are going
He says in love and war all is fair
But he’s got cards he ain’t showing
Sunshine come on back another day
Pretty soon I’ll be singing
This old world, gonna turn around
Brand new bells will be ringing
—-Jonathan Edwards “Sunshine“
We are spoiled here in California compared to other winemaking regions. Most every year the weather is pretty predictable (dry and relatively warm) and we can usually count on getting ripe grapes with few exceptions. But any little deviation from our usual weather pattern can make some of us spoiled Californians turn into questioning, complaining brats. I was one of those “brats” this year and complained quite a bit when our Indian Summer didn’t show at it’s usual time (mid-September thru October) and worried that we wouldn’t have a very good year (“Oh No!”).
In contrast to other regions (like Burgundy, Bordeaux or Oregon) that have to deal often with summer rains and frost during harvest. Our summer season here tends to be quite moderate—we get lots of fog during the day and at night, especially when the Central Valley is burning up as that weather pattern in the interior seems to pull the cool moisture up and out of the ocean here. This makes for a relatively cool summer and is what makes this growing region so wonderful for grapes as these cool summers essentially extend and improve flavor development. But, for those of us who like to see and feel the sun a little and also think that our harvest depends upon our Indian Summer, this was not such a good thing. But on second thought, maybe that’s not
necessarily so…...
This harvest has changed my views a little on what is required to ripen our grapes here as our Indian Summer hasn’t appeared until recently, after we have finished with harvest. We had an incredibly long growing season this year with very few really hot days, and as a result there was, admittedly, more rot in many vineyards, but otherwise there were great flavors….incredible flavors…..that warrant an exclamation of “This is one great winemaking year!”.
And now, today, I awoke to a brilliantly glorious Indian Summer day, on election day no less, after a great harvest, I have to say I’m in a great mood— positive and hopeful, with great expectations of how the wine we are putting into barrels right now will develop and blossom into something just a little different, a little more beautiful and maybe a little more mysterious than last year.