Merlot Vineyard

When I first had the idea to make wine 5 months ago, the original plan was to make Grenche.  I wanted to make wine that I like to drink, and very different wine from what I make for work.  However, it was difficult to find a Grenache source that was both tasty, affordable and nearby.  

While looking for Grenache I found the Barbera vineyard and decided to give that a chance.  Teroldego was planted in the same vineyard as the Barbera, so we bought the Teroldego to have as an optional blender.  It was a risky move because I'm not familiar with many Barberas and have never had Teroldego before.  But I realized that not having the wine took some of the pressure off to achieve a particular style.  I don't have a Barbera in my mind that I want to emulate, I can just try to make tasty wine.

Then just when I thought we were done harvesting, a family friend of Todd's had some extra fruit from his Merlot vineyard.  It was extremely last minute, neither of us was interested in making Merlot, it really doesn't fit into the Italian program but we decided to check it out anyway.  

Since it was nearby, I drove to the vineyard in Saint Helena.  Vineyard matters are usually Todd's domain but only I was available to visit, so he told me to take a lot of pictures (as if I needed a reminder!).

So I took several pictures to give Todd and idea of the vineyard, and to share here.

Look at the large berries!  To be fair I have tiny hands.  But in general, berries this year are larger than last, at least in most of the vineyards that pass through my lab.

So after snapping several pictures, I started berry sampling.

I didn't have a sample bag, and the only thing I could find in the trash was a plastic Chinet bag, which was way better than my original plan to use my pockets.
So I collected around 200 berries in that to bring back to the lab for analysis.

Berries tasted good, sugar and acid were well balanced, the price was right, so later that afternoon we decided to get a half ton of Merlot.

Still not sure what we are going to do with it, but dammit we are making some Merlot.

-L