Glen Manor Vineyards officially opened to the public on Saturday June 7, 2008. In addition to around 100 guests, Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry, Mr. Robert S. Bloxom was on hand to help with the opening ceremony.
The 2008 vintage is off to a very good start. Spring began cooler and wetter than normal, resulting in slow shoot growth and an anticipated later than normal flowering. However, near the end of May we experience much higher than normal temperatures which accelerated growth and put the vines back on schedule. The weather during flowering was warm and dry and thus we experienced very good fruit set. The 1996 planting of Cabernet Sauvignon was the last variety to complete flowering, around June 14. We now have an over abundance of little green fruit clusters and will begin adjusting the crop load downward in the coming days and weeks.
September Harvest Update
2008 has been an up and down year to be sure. After a cool and wet spring, we experienced very dry and hot weather for flowering and fruit set and then the rains really came for the later part of June and the early part of July. Late July and most all of August were once again extremely dry with moderate and comfortable temperatures. But on August 28 the remnants of Hurricane Fay left 1.8 inches of water and on September 6 the remnants of Tropical storm Hanna left another 1.25 inches of water. Things could have been much worse as these types of systems usually leave several inches of water.
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We harvested our Sauvignon Blanc, the west facing side of the vines on September 3 and the east facing side of the vines on September 5. I am quite please with the juice. It is sweet and exotic. Now it's on to the reds. Birds have been an issue this year. Actually they have been an increasing problem for the last several years. Scare tactics that were effective in the past were not this year, resulting in the use of bird exclusion netting for the first time. We netted all of our Merlot and I suspect that in 2009 the entire vineyard will be netted.
October Harvest Update
Just ahead of a nor'eastern storm system which left us nearly 3 inches of water we harvested our two Merlot blocks. The fruit was very ripe with sweet supple tannins. We did however, sort out both in the field and on our sorting tables, bird damaged berries before destemming and of course stem fragments prior to entering the fermenter bins. Because of these late season rains we've been experiencing, we have decided to make a Loire style dry Rosé wine and in that process help increase the quality of our 2008 red wines. About 15% to 20% of the juice from our red grapes will be drained out of the fermenters to use for our Rosé. This will increase the ratio of skins to the remaining juice, raising the flavor and textural concentration in the resulting wines.
2008 Harvest Roundup
This growing season will be remembered much for its varied weather patterns and also thankfully so, for its wines. Since the last update, we hadn't any rain until the 25th of October, 1 day after our final harvest of Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact, we had the most perfect late season red grape ripening weather, with warm sunny days and cool crisp nights. All of our Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot grapes benefited greatly by this weather and all have great flavor, concentration and balance. We still have a couple more weeks of pressing and barrel work before we can go into our more relaxed and much appreciated winter mode. During this season, among other chores, we can taste and evaluate these wines as they develop. But based on the quality and ripeness of the fruit, I suspect that the 2008 wines will be long noted for their complexity of aromas and flavors and for the elegance of their body and balance.
Late winter 2009
After a very cold and very dry winter, spring is fast approaching. Our tempo in the vineyards is quickening as we try to keep pace with the lengthening of the days and the rise in temperatures. Dormant pruning is complete and we are near finishing the tying down of this years fruiting canes. In April we will be planting four and half acres of vines on our most challenging and exposed west facing slope. This slope is our steepest and rockiest and will be ideal for ripening Cabernet Sauvignon.
Early Spring 2009
Spring has been cold and wet, resulting in this years buds swelling very slowly. An unprecedented budbreak of all our varieties occurred during a 4 day heat wave, +90 degrees Fahrenheit, in late April. Just as quick as the heat came, it left, and our cold wet spring returned. Shoots are slowly growing now, allowing us time to complete some tasks before the growing season rush is on. We expanded our new vineyard this spring as well. In total four and a half acres were planted. Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon vines were planted to our steepest and rockiest sites, with both southern and western exposures. I am extremely excited about the potential for this new vineyard.
Late Spring 2009
April and May were both very wet months causing high fungal disease pressure and increased vigor in our vines growth. All of this just means that we must work diligently, rapidly and from sunup to sundown to keep up with our vineyards this year. The only silver lining is that the increased moisture has been very beneficial in helping to establish our young vines planted in 2008 and last April. We have finished flowering and much the same as budbreak occurred in all our varieties during a 4 day heat spell in late April, all our varieties began flowering and set their fruit within one week's time. What this may mean is that harvest could be compressed into a shorter span of time than normal but it's really too early to tell as many other factors and environmental influences will take place between now and autumn.
Mid summer 2009
Verasion, when the vines begin to convert starches into sugars and the grape softens and begins to show some color, began around the 30th of July. This is slightly ahead of normal. We have finished our final crop adjustment for the year with the completion of green harvesting. Yields looked to be average to a little below average. Bird netting was applied to Merlot and an early ripening clone of Cabernet Sauvignon, for a total of 2 acres or one third of our bearing vine acreage. July was very dry but the soils are still quite wet after early spring rains and many more sunny dry days are needed for the development of great intensity of flavor and structure that we seek in our grapes.
Beginning of harvest 2009
We harvested our Sauvignon Blanc the week of September 7th through the 11th. It is some of the very finest fruit I’ve seen or tasted from this block since we began harvesting from it some 13 years ago. From pale green to translucent white to deep golden, the berries look beautiful and ripe. The juice has tropical flavors of kiwi, melon, lemon, and banana. Great intensity and wonderfully balanced, should make a lovely wine. Merlot is up next, towards the end of September, first of October. Hope this beautiful ripening weather holds.
2009 Wines, as of early November 2009
Our 2009 wines are in various stages of development. This years Sauvignon Blanc has completed fermentation and is now aging until its late winter bottling. Our 2009 Rosé is currently fermenting in a couple of barrels and will include a little Petit Verdot. Of our red wines only the Merlot has been put into barrel so far. Our Cabernet Franc, a young block of Cabernet Sauvignon and our Petit Verdot will be pressed off and put into barrel during the second week of November. Grapes from the 1996 planting of Cabernet Sauvignon are still fermenting and the resulting wine will go into barrel just before Thanksgiving. While in barrel all of these red wines will go through a secondary fermentation over the winter before the final blends are arranged next spring.
The 2009 harvest and crush came to an end on 27 October with the crushing of grapes from our 1996 planting of Cabernet Sauvignon. 2009 was a bit of a stressful and difficult year but in the end the fruit ripened beautifully and will make very intense, structured and age worthy wines. The beginning of the growing season was extremely wet, but from early July through mid October we were extremely dry and quite cool. Because of this cool summer, harvest was delayed a bit but this actually worked to our advantage as grape flavor development kept pace with grape chemistry, i.e., sugars, pH and acids. Significant rains held off just until the time of year when the vines no longer take up much water anyway, so the fruit still ripening were not compromised. We did experience a partial frost on our lower blocks of vines but continued to hang the fruit and there was just enough movement of resources within the vines and sunlight from above to obtain full flavor maturity. All in all it was a very good year to grow wine in Virginia.
