Dear Friends,

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful summer with friends and family.  We are enjoying a fantastic season at Nicholson Ranch.  July and August brought the heat precisely at the right time, nourishing the vineyard from a wet winter and a cool spring.  The vines need the summer heat to grow their shoots and leaves to create a canopy of green to nourish the young fruit.

This year the fruit looks ideal, with two clusters per branch, each cluster full of berries (about 80 per bunch).  Twelve to fifteen bunches will make a bottle of wine.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

The following two months are critical in the development of the grapes. The Summer gives us whole clusters of grapes. They are raw, dark green, hard to the touch, and tart after completing their first development phase from flower to fruit.   In the next stage, the vines will focus on developing the berries’ sugar, color, and flavor.  The change in color of the berries from dark green to pink is the first sign of this change.  This change of color is one of the most critical events in the wine-growing season.  It is called veraison.  All winemakers mark their calendars because from veraison to harvest takes about six or seven weeks every year.  Veraison is the time that allows us to prepare for the upcoming harvest.

The grapes gradually make more sugar, and the skins turn from green to pink to an intense red.  The sugar content, called brix, is the easiest to track week by week.  A simple hand-held device measures the sugar to keep track of the progress.

The last phase of ripening is the development of flavor.  If the grapes taste like grapes, they are not ready for wine.  When ready to pick, Pinot Noir grapes should have strawberry, raspberry, and cherry flavors. These flavors express themselves at the end of ripening, over a short period, changing daily.  There is no hand-held device to tell you how much strawberry flavor is in the juice or what the mix of raspberry and cherry is.  The flavor decision is all up to the winemaker’s palate. When I taste ripe Pinot Noir grapes, it evokes memories of flavors from years past and the consequential wines.  Deciding whether the grapes are ready is instinctive and formed by years of experience.   The harvesting decision is the most significant decision a winemaker will make.  It is one that I wait for every year.

I am thrilled to share my passion and the fruits of our labor with you.  Thank you for your continued patronage and for allowing me to do what I love.  

This wine shipment includes the 2020 Dry Farmed Pinot Noir.  Along with all Nicholson Ranch 2020 Pinot Noirs, the Dry Farmed Pinot Noir has received excellent reviews from the Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast.    Your accolades are always the best, and it is nice to be recognized by our peers.

Cheers

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Deepak Gulrajani