Harvest Update - Will Edition

We heard from Will!

Ever since he left Woodinville to start his winemaking journey with Charlie, he has been quite the busy man. But he was able to climb out of the tanks to give us an update on how harvest is going and let's just say, this vintage will be one for the books!

From Will

- I'm writing this right before I start my split shift so I'll make it quick; harvest has picked up so half the crew at the winery is working 6am-4pm, crushing fruit, measuring fermentations and inoculating, + doing the morning pumpovers, punchdowns, and roll of the roller barrels while the second half of the team works 10am-8pm pressing fermentations into barrel and finishing with the pumpovers.  Mitch, Chaz, and I usually meet right at 10am to taste through everything and decide what's going to get pressed that afternoon or next morning.
- The biggest thing we've noticed is how "bright" the wines are from this harvest - great acidity, light on the palate, without any overripe fruit characteristics.  We've seen a gradual cool end of the summer which has allowed us to pick things at a nice even pace without worrying about everything getting ripe all at once.  Sometimes we get pretty warm mid-September but the forecast is mid-high 70's with
- We're about 40% done with all the Fidelitas picks which is hard to believe but we still have lots and lots of cab coming in which tends to be the most work with all the different fermentation vessels that we use for those,
- Right now we have 33 red, 12 white, 2 rose active fermentations at Wine Boss
- The most exciting news yet is the 3 Estate Vineyard lots we have going, Merlot, Malbec, and Clone 169 Cab.  Can't wait to try those after they getting closer to being dry.  We've processed quite a bit of Quintessence fruit already so we'll have a good benchmark to compare those too.
- Fun fact: Malbec looks horrible when it gets crushed, the insides are lime green, everything falls apart, and the juice is like a beige/pale color.  Then overnight magic happens and the juice is a dark purple color and tastes like wildberry jam.
 

Thanks for the update, Will! Now...get back to pumpovers!