Nearly four weeks into July,,,

Here at Toucan Wines we've had some warm days and cool nights, typical for this time of year. It's been a dry growing season and the vines have produced an average sized crop of what I believe will prove to be outstanding quality. The vineyard is just about ready to net from bird damage, a final step which I hope to get done with a lot of help on August 2nd

This week we bottled our premier release of Toucanet, 300 six-pack cases of 500ml traditional Porto bottles will be released in early fall. Learn more about Toucanet by clicking here. This wine spent up to 22 months in 4 great barrels and the result is very special... you need to taste it for yourself!

Preparation for harvest has started with the ordering of fermentation materials and cleaning. Lots of details at this stage and we still have a few bigger projects to complete before harvest begins. Soon, I plan to rack all the 08' wines and settle on our barrel regiment for the 09' vintage.

Vineyard and Winery Update

With the vineyard tying done, the vineyard freshly mowed (hopefully for the last time this season) and having just sprayed -- I can turn my energy to the winery. Oh yea, I have some hoeing still to do :=(

Our vineyard is looking good and the crop appears to be normal or slightly larger than normal. Once the fruit turns, we'll walk through and crop-thin where needed. The mild, but dry, weather may extend the growing season unless we see warmer days in July. I worry this time of year about cluster burn from the sometimes 105 degree days we get during a heat wave.

In the winery, I have everything ready for bottling the Toucanet. The wine's been racked, samples went to the lab, Nitrogen tanks are filled, corks arrived, additional bottles and boxes arrived. Now it's just a matter getting the wine into bottles. The 08' wines are resting in barrels and developing nicely.