Old Vine Carignane Harvested...

Last Saturday, with Photo Bob our favorite photographer and transportation director, we fetched and processed a wonderful load of Old Vine Carignane - making this our third vintage from the beautiful Evangelho Vineyard.

Compared to 2008, our journey was relatively smooth - we made good time, the weather was mild, and we arrived safely home to find plenty of help to move the fruit through the crush.

We started this year's journey at 11:30 Friday evening, but we had done some pre-planning in the weeks prior. We made new lids and had lining for the bins, and we were much better prepared for transportation issues. This planning helped keep the fruit cool, arriving at 66 degrees after a long day traveling in the sunshine.

We arrived in Contra Costa at 4:30am in time for a quick bite at Denny's and arrived at the vineyard before the pickers. As the Sun came up over this 120 year old vineyard, our bins were getting full. We worked to find the ideal spots within the vineyard and by 9:30 we had loaded the bins and we were back on the road.

Today, the Old Vine Cariginane is beginning to ferment in small bins inside our cool winery. Everything has gone perfectly for this wine so far, we look forward to another killer wine from this old vineyard.

Another Toucan Harvest Complete

With some good help this weekend we finished picking the last of our estate vineyard. The last bin of grapes turned out super sweet and with dark color.

It always feels good to have the harvest behind us, now we'll remove nets and give the vineyard a needed drink. After this last batch of wine is barreled down, we'll start a few fall projects on the farm.

Wrapping up for the season

The process or art of wine making, at least the initial and critical stages, are wrapping up for us at Toucan Wines for another season.

A final pressing tomorrow and one more harvest of second crop later this fall will be the last effort for the year. We'll move to racking, bottling, cleaning and storing away the equipment we only use during harvest. In the vineyard we're waiting for second crop and then we'll remove the nets and again wait for the right time to begin pruning.

We enjoyed a brief rain yesterday and now a little wind mixed with pleasant sunshine is making for a perfect Sunday afternoon. Warm days are in the forecast as we move into the most beautiful time of year on the central coast of California.

Winemaking Preparation

Planning is a funny thing, some folks do it at the last minute while others plan the details long in advance - I think I'm somewhere in between.

Winemaking definitely requires some advanced thought. Barrels are often ordered in the spring to capture early order discounts, while specialty yeasts are ordered before they sell out. And other supplies need to be in stock before the grapes are ready. If grapes are purchased that relationship requires plenty of advanced communication.

Fortunately, I have a wonderful barrel connection with Demptos and love their barrels and the first of our barrels have just arrived. Also, today yeasts arrived and next week I'll gather the remaining supplies from a local lab. I'm building great anticipation for this year's harvest and have every hope for a stellar year from our estate vineyard.

Allow me a brief sales note - we've sold out of 2006 Carignane and we're just about sold out of 2006 Petite Sirah, we still have a little of our award-winning 2005 Estate Zinfandel and more of the 2006 Toucan Cuvee. Please look for our wines at these fine restaurants and wine shops, and know that you are always welcome to call me here at the winery for availability info and to

order directly from us.

Our only bottled and unreleased wine, the 2006 Estate Zinfandel (very limited with 123 cases produced) will release later this year. Our 2007 wines will remain in barrel through harvest and estate bottled this winter.