Winemaker Report October 2016

Hello once again! We trust you are well, and preparing for another Holiday Season. Yep, it’s pretty much here!

We have finished yet another phenomenal harvest here in Amador County. We saw a couple typical heat spikes in July, but then the weather pattern fell into, what I would call, more normal growing conditions (however, what is normal anyway!). After early September, there were no real extremes to mention and daytime highs were in the low 90’s with nighttime lows in the low 50’s. Grapevines like these temperature fluctuations! These optimal conditions allowed the fruit to fully ripen physiologically by providing a longer hang time on the vine so that the grapes could develop the fullest flavors possible. This harvest should make for some very beautiful, interesting and delicious wines!

We have a fantastic production team here at Renwood, and none of what we do would be possible without their hard work and dedication. Most of us were here into the wee-hours of each morning, for weeks on end, waiting for our nighttime picked fruit to arrive in order to get it all gently processed and into the tanks as cold, and as quickly, as possible. It’s tiresome work and makes for some very long days, but we are so adamant about making the best wines that we can. We just keep going because we know it’s the right thing to do!

In the Cellar, the wines of 2015 are aging gracefully. In another month or so, Moises and I will start working on the new blends, preparing them for bottling in April and May. Keep an eye out for some new wines that Renwood has not produced in a very long time: Hint: it’s Italian (wink, wink). Also new this year, we were able to purchase some concrete tanks. We’ve been conducting exciting experimentations with them, on several different varieties, and the preliminary results are very promising. We’ll share with you when we can, we promise!

My letters are never complete without expressing our deepest gratitude to you. For supporting us and for being our brand champions, we greatly appreciate all of you and look forward to seeing you here as much as possible and very soon! We hope you enjoy the current releases in this shipment and we wish you all the best in the coming month.

Warm Regards,
Joe Shebl