A Bountiful Year: In our 10th growing season, we harvested 7.5 tons of grapes on October 21: just under 2 tons of grenache to accompany 5+ tons of syrah to the winery. Even with another very cool summer and 3 inches of rain just before harvest, we managed to increase our final yield by about 60% over last year’s dismally small crop.
For our own 2011 winemaking, we undertook three projects: Verjus, Rosé, and The Odyssey, which for the first time includes grenache. Picked and crushed on October 20 with many extra Kiger Family hands, The Odyssey for 2011 is half cabernet, and a quarter each syrah and grenache.

What We’re Drinking: We enjoyed the “kegged” 2010 KFV Rosé all summer, filling up the same bottle over and over, and judged it our best rosé yet. The Odyssey, 2009 vintage, was bottled in May, while 2010 remains in barrel until next Spring. The 2008 Reserve, which spent 21 months in barrel is remarkably smooth and ready! We love the 2007, and the 2005-6 vintages are just about gone.

Lessons We Learned: How much time do you have?! Let’s just say that we were able to put to practice what we painfully learned last year: watch for and act on powdery mildew invasions quickly with both organic spray and canopy management, don’t remove extra grape clusters until after fruit set, keep Deb away from the animals grazing in the newly growing poison oak, ground squirrels are both pesky and wily, but not immune to a .22 caliber rifle.

A Cool Lesson for You: Here is a great explanation of how to read, interpret, and  and judge (or not judge) a wine by the label on the bottle.

Menagerie Contracts and Expands: We’re grateful that we started and ended the season with the same number of sheep. They lived on natural forage in the summer pasture until late August when we started supplementing with a little grass hay. We lost two hens this summer, Lucy and Ethel, to a fox, as they couldn’t resist hanging around outside of the area patrolled by Francesco. We added a new young hen, Maria, to be bullied by top-hen Bonnie. Finally, in mid-October, we adopted two kittens from the shelter as part of a barn cat relocation program. They live outdoors and once settled, they will be charged with rodent control. Critter Photos Here

Sheep School: Many winegrowers are seeking information about using sheep to graze in their organic vineyards and orchards. Deb and a partner conducted their annual 2-day Sheep School on November 5-6. Along with Lamb Camp in the Spring, these workshops are offered to give people hands-on experience and education and networking with others.

Cheers: As always we enjoyed our wine with plenty of  friends and family members. We love sharing the love...and our wines with them. Yes, we get by with a little help from our friends. Come on over!

Cheers, L’chaim, and Salute,

Deb and John

PS: Deb started a new blog. She’s writing about life as a farmer and farmer’s wife. It’s called “Who Knew, When I Said I Do.”