2007 Crush Complete

We finally pressed off the last couple of tanks of Malbec right before the weekend. It is great to be finished. Although much of what we brought in this year ripened earlier than normal the harvest seemed to drag on to finish about when we usually finish, November 1st. Andy Perdue was out over the weekend to interview me in regard to my thoughts on the 2007 harvest. This was good because it made me summarize my thoughts in regard to the vintage rather than just being relieved to be done. The video can be watched on the Wine Press Northwest web site. Look for the weekly video blog in the left hand margin.


The more I think about the 2007 vintage the more it reminds me of 1999. Extremely high acids at harvest was the norm then as was the case this year. Once we put these wines through malolactic fermentation we should see wines with perfect acids well within the range we are looking for. This is not the case every year in Washington, despite the fact many people in the industry would like to have you think otherwise. Recent very warm vintages have pushed the natural acids down dramatically and without acidulation the wines we would have produced would have been nearly undrinkable. 2007 seems like a great vintage to look forward to.


I scheduled some events and trips since harvest has been completed. I am spending a couple of days here in Arizona working with a new distributor. The weather here is perfect today, I guess that is why so many people winter here.