Harvest has started in the Don Miguel Vineyard! But Chico can't see it...

Harvest has started at the Don Miguel Vineyard! It's so sad that Chico can't come along with Mom and me, since his leg needs to rest. He looks so sad every time Mom and I leave the house!

On Wednesday we picked the Stony Block at the crack of dawn! The sunrise was magnificent

Yesterday we picked the steepest slope of the Don Miguel Vineyard. Hard work indeed!

  And today we picked at night for the first time! 

We started Tuesday, September 20 -- how exciting! First fruit to go was the block below our house, which was the first one to become Biodynamic and always ripens earliest. Then Wednesday was the Stony Block, our single-clone bottling of Dijon 115. Yesterday we picked the steepest block of the vineyard, planted with the Pommard clone. Only today were we able to harvest at night, since the other blocks of Pinot Noir are too steep and we'd worry about the safety of the team. But night picking is of course most desirable, as the fruit comes cool and at its best.

We went to the Doña Margarita Vineyard in Sonoma Coast yesterday -- the Pinot Nor is getting ripe very quickly but definitely not there yet.  With the nice weather this week, we feel pretty sure we'll be picking next week. And that Mother Nature will spare us from the chance of rain announced for this weekend!

Some vines are perfectly balanced with great looking bunches, like this one -- but others have very little fruit

Bonita did not want to eat the grapes -- that tells us the fruit for sure is not ripe yet!