September
With August in the history books, September will be a time for playing
catch-up. Cool weather in spring, heat spikes in summer, and thunderstorms
in August all played parts in delaying harvest until early September.
On September 3rd, St. Supéry crushed our first grapes of
the 2003 harvest (to cheers and toasts of sparkling wine by employees
and winery visitors). The fruit came from three young parcels of
Sauvignon Blanc at Dollarhide. The Chardonnay is waiting
in the wings and will most likely be harvested by the second or
third week of September. Shortly after the Chardonnay is complete,
the young parcels of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot will yield their
light crops. With the new plantings finally coming into their own,
the winery’s crush team will have their work
cut out for them, working hard to handle the fruit from several
parcels ripening at the same time.
September holds little else in the way of vineyard work other than
continued irrigation, continued pest monitoring to ensure there
is no late season outbreak of pathogen or insect, continued sampling
to determine when the grapes reach proper maturity, and chomping
at the bit waiting for the next parcel to be ready to be picked.
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 Mechanical
harvesting in action
 Picking
at night to retain the best quality fruit.
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