It’s almost harvest time, but don’t worry, I’ll be better
soon. Nothing ruins a good night’s sleep, makes my skin itch or aggravates my
allergies and generally gives me the jitters like the beginning of another new
harvest. Most people think this is when all the excitement happens at a winery,
but in some ways, it’s the most boring time of the year. Checking calibration
of the scale, re-cleaning the press and crusher-stemmer (considering how well
they are cleaned at the end of the season, where do all those grapes and seeds
come from?) pumping cleaning solutions through the huge hoses, re-writing the
vintage guidelines based on this year’s growing season, charting ripening of
the grapes in the lab, assembling picking crews, scheduling trucks,
reconsidering my relations with the wine gods, one last vacuuming of my office
for the next six weeks, acquisition of medication for the on-set of the annual
family yeast infections, etc., etc.

So is this going to be a good vintage or a bad one? Well, I
call this a winemaker’s vintage. This time the old bones have a distinct
advantage. Mother Nature has not been generous with her sun and heat this year
and we winemakers have to compensate. If we pick right after a rain the
delicious flavors might have been diluted. Consequently, considering the manyrains of the ’09 season, I will
be leaving grapes to hang as long as possible to garner maximum sugar and
flavors. In some cases that means instead of picking a field by hand over the
course of a week’s time, I will let things hang to ripen every possible hour.
Meanwhile, I’ll watch the weather and when I see the next storm coming down the
valley we’ll get out there with our fancy German mechanical grape harvester and
pick the whole field in about four hours. If we need to achieve more
concentrated flavors, we’ll bleed off 10 or 15 percent of the “free run” juice
to increase the ratio of skins to juice.

Identifying our best qualities and sustaining them is what
keeps me off the street and earning my wages. Any one can make good wine in a
great vintage. This kind of vintage is what separates the classified Bordeaux
wine growths and other respected properties from the rest of the bunch. Not
everyone is willing (and able) to make the painful cost-be-damned decisions
that favor quality over quantity, but I am. The 2009 harvest in the Brandywine
Valley may not turn out be a stellar vintage, but the wines I eventually decide
to bottle I guarantee will be good.

And I’m not alone in this philosophy. Of course, I’d love to
have you come and taste my ‘09s, but if you really want to get to know a
vintage, if you’re a locavore of the highest calling, you might want to keep
your tongue out for some of the wines grown west of here in Lancaster. Somewhat
less rain and a bit more sun and heat seems to have allowed the fruit up there
to ripen a bit sooner than here. But the vintage is not over yet, so we
winemakers and cellar dwellers will continue heroically, and give you a final
evaluation later. Now where’s that headache remedy…..

Eric

Late Night Notes:

Vintage: The year the grape is grown. If you like
light fresh fruity wines, this is like a use-up sticker. Drink those wines
within three years of the vintage. If you are a wine hobbiest and keep track of
vintages you’ll remember the good ones and even lay down the great ones.

Last good bottle: Just in case you haven’t heard of
Novy wines, I wanted to mention a delicious ’06 Syrah of theirs I had recently
with a spicy pork dish. Jumped right out of the glass with a big sweet juicy
fruit from nose to mouth. This California producer is consistently good at
California reds and I plan to learn to love what they do with Oregon Pinot
Noir.

About Eric Miller

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