The Old Vine

Harvest is upon us and winemaker, Glenn Hugo, says we will be bringing in about 285 tons of Sauvignon Blanc this week.  This puts us at 2 weeks ahead of harvest last year, which kicked off on September 13, 2011.  We have sourced these grapes from several vineyards throughout Napa Valley including as far north [...]

We are now, or at least should be, in the home stretch of the 2011 growing season.  As you drive along Hwy 29 the vineyards are lush with green foliage, trimmed and thinned neatly and taking in every drop of sunlight and degree.  Veraison has begun in some of the warmer parts of Napa Valley [...]

I sat down with Marco DiGiulio this week and we talked about the weather. Not that we didn’t have anything else to talk about, but now that we’re well into the growing season, I wanted to hear his thoughts on how this year’s harvest is shaping up. Marco, what has happened so far this year [...]

It’s March. Spring is around the corner. We turned our clocks forward. And the vineyards should be pruned by now. This past week, I followed our winemaker, Zach Long, out to a vineyard close by to learn more about vineyards, pruning and growing grapes. It was such a beautiful location that I had to make [...]

After the grapes are crushed and pumped into huge stainless tanks to await fermentation, a small closed-cell foam rubber ball is pumped through the lines to push out the remaining juice. It’s called the pig and the trick is to catch it before it goes into the tank. Sounds easy enough, but I decided to [...]