April 27, 2010
Richard Bruno writes about the challenges
of the 2009 Vintage...

After making wine in California for 15 years, I can say without a doubt, that we have it easy. In general, the sun shines, the grapes get ripe (really as ripe as you want for the most part), and rain seems to delay long enough to pick all of the finicky varietals that can rot: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Petite Sirah. As it is with many crops, the fear of rain for wine grapes is the fear of rot. This is common on the varietals named above because their clusters are very tight and compact. To bring these grapes in on time, and in the best possible shape, it pays to keep an eye on the weather report. I carry my iPhone, which has an application for up-to-the-minute local weather, and I program in all of the areas I have under contract for wine grapes. To be a good winemaker, it pays to be an amateur meteorologist.

The second half of a vintage is marked by managing the substantially important varietals like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes (and to a lesser extent other Bordeaux varietals like Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot). Since these first two varietals have loose grape-cluster architecture, winemakers may literally weather storms waiting for optimal ripeness. It’s completely normal to wait out late-season rainstorms because, compared to earlier varietals, “Cab is tough.” Well, as we learned as an industry this past year, even Cabernet will rot after a week of 5-plus inches of rain in Napa (it was 10.5 inches in the Santa Cruz Mountains in one day!), followed by slightly warmer weather, but not hot weather. The mildly warm weather served to really spike humidity without drying off the incredible amounts of moisture in the soil and in the air. These are perfect conditions for all types of rot, particularly botrytis cinerea or “noble rot.” That said, I did see evidence of aspergillus, a green mold that doesn’t seem to affect quality too much unless it’s ubiquitous.

The key to success in the '09 vintage was to get all of the rot-sensitive varietals off BEFORE the rain, which I did…the last pick of Petite Sirah was processed at the start of the storm…we were crushing under tarps. After the rain, it rained more… and more. Finally, even as the forecast improved, humidity remained, and THEN I started to panic. I was visiting all of my Cabernet and Merlot vineyards on a daily basis (and in some cases twice a day), tearing grape clusters apart seeking evidence of botrytis and praying for higher sugars. In some cases, we lost 2 degrees brix (approximately % sugar); our ideal target for harvest appeared to be fading. In order to make the best wine possible, there were a few things I did: 1) I made sure to harvest BEFORE evidence of botrytis; 2) I made sure the fruit was processed immediately after the pick and sorted very carefully; and 3) Once the fruit was in the tank, I removed some of the juice from the skins in order to concentrate the wine by increasing the skin-to-juice ratio (the French call this saignier; Americans call this juice reduction). The grapes I picked for both the Annabella Cab and Merlot were managed exactly to these strategies and it paid off. We now have a very concentrated Cab with great color, and a Merlot that has nice round tannins and very good color as well. These wines will rest on oak for about 16 to18 months, at which time they will develop sweet, sappy oak tannins that will complement their already top-tier profiles. We reserved some special cuvees for our Marianna label, in anticipation of sculpting the best that Michael Pozzan Wines has to offer.