Record heat now behind us

Very, very hot weather in the 105-111 degree range for five days damaged vine leafs and burned a few clusters. The nights seemed more like N. County in the 70's. I can't remember such intense heat with no relief. Typical of Central Coast weather, we're now in a cooler period of fog and breezy days offering cool days and cold nights.

We stayed inside those five days of blistering heat. We worked on painting the winery and paperwork. Our new air conditioner did a great job in the heat keeping the wines at a perfect storage temperature.

Hot Zinfandel Weather

We expected the heat to arrive earlier this week, today it caught up with us. At 1 pm it was 103 in the shade both dry and windy. I think the vines like some heat but this must have been a shock to the system. I was out at 6 am working in the vineyard and as soon as the sun came up I could feel the impact of what was to come - a burning warm, a feeling on your skin that a hot day is in the making.

We're working inside this afternoon, I'm doing paperwork and looking into new bottles and cork options, while Terrie's painting a wall in the winery a new shade of green.

The Vineyard's Ready for Summer

We made our third pass through the vineyard and finished this weekend. We finished thinning some rather heavy growth for this time of year and tying the last of the loose vines. I've done the second to last mowing for the year, weed-whacked the roadway, and now we're set for summer. The weather has been alarmingly mild, but a heat wave is approaching, as a result the vines have really taken off with the milder weather.

Our next vineyard work will be one last pass to clear any over-growth obstructing the output from our sprayer and to determine if second crop should be removed. We'll also hoe the vineyard one last time before netting.

The wines are selling well and by the way - our 2006 Toucan Cuvee is drinking beautifully. If you haven't got yours, consider stocking up before it's gone. We only made 128 cases.

Toucan Wines in New York & New Jersey

Toucan Wines is now distributed in the greater New York and New Jersey areas, and newly available at The Four Seasons and Le Cirque in New York and Scalini Fedeli, Chatham NJ. For a list of other fine restaurants and fine wine shops who carry Toucan Wines - click here.

Welcome to our east coast friends and I hope you'll enjoy our limited production wines. Feel free to email me here at the winery to say hello.

Working the Vineyard

We are exhausted having finished the second pass of suckering and thinning the vineyard and tying the vines. This is a big job behind us and took two and half weeks. We also hoed the vineyard as we worked through saving a whole other pass.

The days have been mild if not a little cold, but warmer days are forecast for the weekend. The vineyard is flowering and a few advanced vines have set fruit. The growing season is coming along nicely - everything looks great (fingers crossed). The new Petite Sirah replacements are growing nicely, of course, they get hand watered every third day.