2009 Harvest News

The 2009 harvest came to a close and the current vintage is progressing in tanks and barrels. The vineyard has gone through its change of color and is slowly losing its foliage and the winter chill is finally in the air. The 2009 harvest was a little bit of a moving target as we experienced a tremendous downpour within a 24 hour period mid-October. 

With a fair amount of fruit still out on the vines (including the vineyard that we use for Critical Mass Zin!) there were a number of growers concerned that the 2009 harvest just might be a total loss. Some faired better then others, us included and yes, we were able to harvest the CM Zin after all. The fruit from our Home Ranch as well as that which we contracted for looked beautiful and we thank our lucky stars that Mother Nature once again smiled down upon us. 

The rain that fell was welcomed here at Nadeau since our well decided to take a hiatus from production. Actually, claiming that our well has ever truly been in production just might be stretching the truth a tad. Since the day we moved in, its production has been a whopping 8 gallons per minute? enough to keep the storage tank full to service the house and the winery (just barely), but would have never kept up if we had decided to irrigate our vineyard. Not the reason we dry farm, but certainly something we had to consider. At any rate, we are limping along as they say and plan to drill a new well come the first of the year. Long overdue actually.