October 2023
Harvest Season 🚜
Harvest is well underway, and by now we’ve picked most of our white grapes. From what we’ve seen so far, the grape quality this year is outstanding! Our whites have the perfect balance of sugar and acid, dialed in for producing crisp and aromatic wines.
As October rolls around, the focus shifts to red grapes. We’re closely watching our Merlot, as it will be the first red we pick this season. In general, red winegrapes require more “hang time” to fully ripen and develop those rich flavors and deep colors that define a red wine. However, the longer these grapes stay outside, the more likely they are to face damage from animals, disease, and severe weather (hurricanes!). Every year is a balancing act between these competing demands, but our team manages the risks well to consistently deliver outstanding fruit.
Harvest season is one of the most exciting times of the year, and this vintage has been living up to its full potential!
Crushin’ Crew 🤖
Once the grapes are picked, we bring them straight to the winery where the fun really begins! The first step in this process is to separate the grape berries from their stems. We dump the whole grape clusters into our machine (shown here) where an auger makes quick work of the de-stemming. Then, the berries are pumped into our hydraulic press where they are gently squeezed to release that delicious grape juice.
The juice is pumped from the press into a fermentation tank, then we add specialized wine yeast to get the party started. For roughly two weeks, the yeast will do their work transforming the grape juice into wine - converting sugar into alcohol. As this process finishes, a wine is born. Though just like a baby human, this baby wine still has a lot of growing and refining to do before it is ready for its big debut!
SSV Petit Manseng
Given that the above picture shows our Petit Manseng grapes being crushed, we thought it fitting to highlight our Shadow Springs Petit Manseng wine! This grape is one of our favorites, and we blend it into many of our wines in addition to offering it as a single varietal.
This ‘22 vintage was made in a unique style where half of the lot was fermented in stainless steel tanks and the other half in oak barrels. Combining these two lots into one results in a wine that exhibits characteristics of both oaked and stainless whites.
With aromas of honeysuckle, vanilla, and apricot, this wine is a great match for a fresh garden salad or a Mediterranean-inspired seafood pasta. Cheers!