Hardscrabble Journal

Over and Out

It was a fortuitous finish of an otherwise dismal vintage. The Petit Manseng grape has grit. A seriously spiteful Mother Nature threw everything she had at these resilient vines, but they still gave us a harvest that will make some of the best wines of 2018. If 2018 is the preview of the affects of climate change, Petit Manseng is in contention to take a leading role.

Our attention has turned to the cellar. This vintage is a very easy one for winemaking. Lower alcohols make for quick, healthy fermentations. The yeasts don’t have to struggle to finish off those last few grams of sugar under high alcohol conditions. They just zip on through to dryness. Our individual lots are less numerous as there will be no separate single vineyard bottlings. Fewer individual wines are easier to manage.

And there are no reds, which typically consume us at this time of the year. Normally we would be doing twice daily pump-overs or punch downs, monitoring fermentation activity, recording temperatures and tasting to decide when to drain the vats and barrel up each lot. This year we are putting equipment away for the season and splitting firewood. It is very surreal to have an October with nothing to do. I hope it never happens again.

Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Journal: October 8, 2018