Harvest is nearly complete at Winderlea. With our earliest start on record (September 11th) we picked all of the Winderlea estate vineyard by Friday, September 19th. The only fruit that came in ahead of our estate vineyard was the Shea Vineyard block which we harvested on Sunday, September 14th. The remainder of our Dundee Hills AVA sites (Weber, Juliard, Maresh and Black Walnut) were picked between between September 21st and 29th. Our cooler sites (Meredith Mitchell and Crawford Beck vineyards) happily hung fruit through the 1st of October.
We had a pleasant Chardonnay surprise on the Winderlea vineyard this year. We’ve most likely told you that the 2 oldest blocks, planted in ‘74 and ‘76, were originally Chardonnay and grafted over to Pinot noir. Well, due to some poor cane selection during pruning over the years, many more Chardonnay canes have been reestablished. In fact, after doing a vine count we concluded that we might have enough Chardonnay to produce a barrel of estate Chardonnay from the the “Legacy” blocks. We did pick the Chardonnay separately and it is currently fermenting away on its own. For you Winderlea Chardonnay fans, this could be something special and we will keep you posted.
In summary, all of the fruit is pristine and plentiful and we are excited about the prospects for a truly wonderful 2014 vintage.