Weather  
Today

Although we seem to have one day's postponement from the major series of storms originally forecast, they are still anticipated this week, beginning late Monday.

The last couple days have been dry and cool, with highs over the last week in the upper 50s. Highs have not been in the 80s since September 27th.

Rain Friday amounted to 0.12 inches at Stoller Vineyards' weather station, with October's accumulation totalling less than an inch at 0.95.

Harvest  2000  October 15, 2000

Almost Home.

Early morning at Corral Creek on Saturday

Today is the last Pinot noir harvest, with the Ridgecrest 5 Acre Block, source of the major component of Rion Reserve in most vintages, coming in great condition and full maturity. Fruit quality has been impeccable this year, with sorting line discards amounting to little more than a trash can's worth over the entire harvest.

Harvest at Stoller is complete as of yesterday, when Adelsheim and Chehalem brought the last Chardonnays off. A total of 199 tons were harvested from Stoller this year.

A big part of winemaking, in addition to the science, romance, and washing, is logistics:

•	when to bring in based on flavors, health of fruit (i.e., fragility or disease)
•	existence of fermentor space
•	number of press loads possible for whites and how to work in pressing reds after fermentation is over
•	how to dispose of pomace bins (fondly called "bone bins") regularly to our compost pile to minimize fruit fly breeding around the winery
•	how to pick at several sites at once with a fixed number of tractors and trucks to transport
	.....a balancing act.

Lunches Include Wine Tastings and Great Food: Cheryl at the end of one such lunch

Soon you realize limiting factors and, if not improvable immediately, you plan to resolve them for next year. For example, the 10 tons of Stoller Dijon Chardonnay picked yesterday was taken to another winery for pressing, using their 10-ton capacity press, rather than bringing it to the Chehalem winery to compete with Pinot gris for press time in our two- ton press. Juice was pumped directly from the other winery's big press into a milk tanker truck and brought to Chehalem, saving a day's work and possible compromising of fruit quality. Very high on our capital list for next year is a bigger press.

Whites are in barrel, ready for yeast innoculation--for those not relying on native fermentation. We are racking the 1999 Ian's Reserve Chardonnay to free-up additional barrels for 2000 Chardonnay. The 1999 has been in barrel for a full 12 months, on gross lees without racking over that entire time. The Ian's barrels were selected in July from all we began with and reserved for additional aging. It will be bottled as soon as the dust settles, likely without filtration as we did with the 1998. The 1999 vintage has proven to be a magnificent white wine vintage, even better than the 1998s. Pinot noir will be equal to 1998 on average.

Everyone's excited that harvest is close to over. Dog-tired until the first couple cups of coffee, the long days and seven days-a-week since the beginning almost three weeks ago have taken their toll. Still cheerful, we're ready for a day off. When there's no more fruit to bring in it gets simpler.

Dan Beekley gets a haircut

And, in an effort to make everything a little simpler for distributors, retailers, and restaurateurs, plus for me, we have asked Dan Beekley from our Pennsylvania/New Jersey/Delaware's Sussex Distributors to join Chehalem, responsible for National Marketing. He arrived on Wednesday and dove into harvest. As the photo attests, he came at the right time to feel like a new recruit, haircut and all! Marie Cahill, a professional hairstylist who is married to Beaux Freres' James Cahill, came to us and cut hair all afternoon Friday. When you ask people to work 18 hours a day, you have to provide some conveniences and this is one we've made tradition for the last 3 years.

Harry