July 10
It’s July and the hot summer weather has arrived. Grape flowers have transformed into grape berries and shoot growth has all but stopped. The vines are now focused on berry development. The grapes are nearly full size and the color will start to change towards the end of this month. It is a good time to weigh the clusters for crop estimates. Canopy management is critical at this stage to optimize sun exposure of grape clusters. It is a delicate balance between over exposure and under exposure. Dave Shein, our Napa Valley Vineyard Manager, and his crew at Soda Canyon have been working diligently tucking and trimming shoots and removing laterals (done on the morning sun side only). Everything looks shipshape and ready for harvest.
As far as wine work, it is a quiet time in the cellar so we are taking inventory and ordering supplies in preparation for harvest. We will start our second racking of the 2008 Merlot towards the end of the month so we will be done before harvest. We are always experimenting and fine tuning our protocol at Twomey and one of these areas is with our French Oak barrels. Our barrel orders for 2009 are complete and we are very excited about two coopers that are new to our barrel regime. July is a month of quiet anticipation.
~Rob Schwartz, Assistant Winemaker