After a relatively mild summer, without any extreme heat spikes, our grapes reached maturity. We kicked off  the 2007 harvest with our Jardine Sauvignon Blanc on August 24th. Our crews picked the fruit by hand during the chilly night hours and delivered sound fruit to the winery early the next morning. After pressing, the juice was transferred to one of our stainless steel tanks for clarification. We racked the juice of the solids, 48 hours later, and then started the temperature controlled fermentation.

 

In early September we started our “RED” harvest with Syrah and Petite Sirah. Characteristics of this vintage include excellent levels of ripeness and Brix that are slightly higher than last year's. New in the portfolio is a small amount of Petite Sirah from our Creston Valley Vineyard. We picked our Syrah fruit from various blocks on our estate Huerhuero Vineyard and from two blocks on Ryan Road Vineyard. The Huerhuero fruit gives us Syrahs with deep color, good fruit concentration and well balanced tannin structure.  The fruit from Ryan Road Vineyard tends to be darker, and more tannic; overall the bigger wine.

 

Our Roseum  this year is a combination of 65% Grenache, 15% Syrah, 15% Mourvèdre and 5% Viognier. The Viognier and the Mourvèdre are new in this blend and should add even more character to this dry style Rosé!

 

Our Cabernet Sauvignon usually follows towards the end of the season. After a cool trend in mid September, we experienced an Indian summer in Paso Robles. We picked most of our Cabernet grapes within a week,  towards the end of September. Due to the low yields – generally around 3t/acre – and to sort out shriveled fruit, we picked all blocks by hand. I have never seen such equal quality on Cabernet Sauvignon, it should yield in an excellent vintage for Vina Robles.