2006 has proven to be a challenging harvest across the board for the entire North Coast. We got off to a late start with a cool, wet spring that evolved into a cool, wet beginning of Summer. Then 10 days of extremely hot weather actually caused the vines to shut down photosynthesis for much of that time. Seems we went right from Winter to Summer, without much of a Spring in between. After things cooled down a bit in July, temperatures stayed very moderate, with the result being a very delayed harvest. Fruit came dribbling in in dribs and drabs until around September 20 th, when EVERYTHING seemed to ripen at once. Instead of the steady progression of first Pinot noir, then Chardonnay and finally the old vine Aldine Zin, it all came crashing in at once. To compound matters, we had rain centered around the first week of October, which forced us to pick a number of vineyards to try and stay ahead of the worst Botrytis (a type of rot) anyone had seen since 1989, and possibly ever. The Botrytis was able to take hold in so many vineyards across so much of the Russian River and surrounding areas primarily because there was so much moisture in the Spring (which encourages spores) and so many tight clusters with big berries in which the Botrytis could lie dormant until conditions were right.
Some of our coolest vineyards did suffer from the lateness of the year, despite the best efforts of our growers. Folks in the Petaluma Gap are used to viticulture on the edge of what is possible, and this year, full ripening was just not possible. As an example, our highly acclaimed Sangiacomo Chardonnay (#1 domestic Chard of the year in the current “Top 100 wines” issue of Wine & Spirits) will only be about half of what it has been as our cold-climate Roberts Road site just didn’t make it this year. We have to take this philosophically, as the same forces that give us such beautifully sculpted wines in most years delivered the crushing blow of Botrytis this season. We are farmers, and we accept the vintage for what it is, and look forward to next year’s possibilities. We celebrate our good friends the Sangiacomo Family, and share in each others’ loss of 2006.
I am extremely proud of our growers, and if there is one sentiment I carry away from this crush, now that the grapes are all safely in tank (still some to go to barrel) and the wine quality looks excellent, is that I am honored to work with such fine What is in your glass is our promise to you – to bring you the authentic expression of the soil, in Tandem with our passion and commitment to the land. When next you raise a glass of Tandem wine to your lips, please do first raise your glass a little higher and salute the Tandem Vintage Team of 2006! And we will do the same to you, our valued customer – and the most important member of our team. Thanks for choosing Tandem wines to celebrate this holiday and carry us all into the 2007 year. Vint with Honor, Greg La Follette |
The generally large clusters were also the result of so much moisture in the Spring. The vines took up much more water than normal. We knew this was going to happen and so encourages our growers to practice techniques such as pre-bloom leafing that would open the clusters up and reduce berry size. Those growers who followed these practices produced some fantastic fruit and were able to avoid the rot pretty much altogether.
The cellar crew at the Owl Ridge custom crush facility worked 24-7 during all of this, and responded as well as anyone possibly could to these challenges. The staff, lead by seasoned veteran John Tierney, had some of the hardest choices to deal with that I’ve seen in over two decades of rolling the dice with Mother Nature. The decisions I personally made were hard on the crew – cutting picking decisions close to the last possible minute, making adjustments in cap management and processing techniques to coax the best out of what Vintage gave us, frequently working on-the-fly until late into the night and sometimes not knowing just when and how much fruit would come in until it was on the weighmaster’s scale. Of course our growers did the same, playing the waiting game brilliantly and hanging with us during some real nail-biting weather. Our gratitude goes out to John and his staff – thanks for hanging in there and getting us through it, guys!
men and women who tend the vines and help bring the expression of each individual site to bottle.