The Napa Fires

On Saturday, October 14th, my wife Mary Ann and I returned home after being displaced by the Napa and Sonoma fires. My son Matthew and his family evacuated Monday at 1:30 am and came to our house. By 3 pm that afternoon, we all decided to get out of the valley. Our grandaughter is only four months old and we were especially concerned with the amount of smoke that was accumulating in Napa.

This was the worst act of nature that I have ever experienced. Luckily, all of us are well and our homes escaped destruction. Our hearts go out to friends, family, neighbors, and fellow vintners that were not as fortunate. Napa came together as a community like never beore, and I am proud be a resident.

We are thankful that all of our grapes had been picked and crushed before the fires began. It is now time for us all to move forward and help our neighbors get their lives back to some type of normality.

Thank you to family, friends, and customers that reached out to us during that week. We are grateful for your thoughts and prayers.

A special thanks to fire fighters, police, rescue crews, and all first responders. You are awesome!
 

Oct 21, 2017 at 9:49 PM Permalink

Sonoma Harvest Fair

Last night my wife, Mary Ann, and I poured our award winning wines for the Sonoma County Harvest Fair. The event was held at the Sonoma fairgrounds in the Pavilion. I am proud to inform you that we won Double Gold on our 2016 Michael Pozzan Russian River Chardonnay. We also won Silver Medals for both Michael Pozzan Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and the Michael Pozzan Sonoma County Pinot Noir.

Last night's event brought out hundreds of wine enthusiasts from all over Northern California. We also had the opportunity to speak to people that were visiting from Chicago and Houston. It's always been very enjoyable for me to be able to chat with consumer's and gives me a better understanding of what they look for when selecting wines for themselves.

The Russian River Chardonnay was the big hit of the night. So many people commented on the fact that the wine wasn't dominated by too much oak and how it showed wonderful balance and finesse. 

Mary Ann did a great job decorating our table. She shopped for flowers earlier that day and brought bunches of grapes that she picked from our backyard. 
 

Oct 15, 2017 at 9:54 PM Permalink

Harvest So Far

Harvest 2017 is far from done and has already proven itself memorable. Temperatures in the valley soared into the triple digits in late August, and parked in the high 90’s for almost a full week. Many locations up valley registered 109F on the two hottest days of the relentless heat spike. Temperatures briefly cooled into the 80’s before topping 100F again the 2nd week of September. The intense, prolonged heat initially seemed to super charge harvest - thin skinned, early-ripening varietals were ripening quickly and threatening to be damaged by the extreme temperatures. Once the early picks were in, however, it became clear that the heat had impacted later-ripening varietals in far more than visible ways. The word from all parts of the valley was that winemakers and vineyard managers were seeing a complete stall in sugar accumulation in the grapes. The heat seemed to have interrupted the vine’s ability to push the sugar load into the grapes. During a month which usually contributes to slow, even ripening in the vineyard, there were little to no changes in the ripeness of the grapes for roughly 20 days between Labor Day and the last week of September. It had a lot of industry folk scratching their heads.

October has broken with a long-ranging forecast that looks dry and mild - and what ought to be perfect ripening weather. Cabernet vineyards are beginning to adopt a more regular pattern of sugar accumulation, and the peculiar “pause” seen in harvest in September seems to be behind us. There are still plenty of tons left to harvest in Napa Valley, and it’s shaping up to be a spectacular vintage.

Oct 3, 2017 at 11:58 AM Permalink