We picked the fruit for our 2021 Pinot Noir, Block One, on September 10 and 11, 2021. It came from the Phase I blocks we planted in 2017 on our family’s ranch in Eagle Point, in Oregon’s Rogue Valley.
The Pinot Noir
The fruit came in at 23.4 Brix, a measure of the sugar in the grapes. We destemmed it, moved the whole berries by gravity into small fermenters and fermented them with a yeast strain isolated in Burgundy.
The wine aged 16 months in French oak. A quarter of the barrels were new, a quarter had been filled once before and half were neutral (older barrels that give little oak flavor). It finished at 13.8% alcohol, with a pH of 3.69 and 5.9 g/L of total acidity.
Rosé in late August
The rosé fruit came off earlier, in late August, at 21.7 Brix. It was Wädenswil (clone 02A). The juice sat on the skins for 5 hours, and the wine did not go through malolactic fermentation (the conversion that softens acidity). It finished at 12.8% alcohol.
Weather
In modeled data for our vineyard’s 4-kilometer grid square, 2021 was the warmest growing season since at least 1991. By the pick, its total of growing degree days (the running heat total growers use to track ripening) was about a quarter above the 1991 to 2020 average for that date.
April and May were very dry at the Medford airport. On June 28 a heat dome took the airport to 115°F, tying its all-time record, and hot spells continued into mid-August.
A little rain fell at the airport on September 10. Just over an inch followed on September 18 and 19, and October was wet.
September 10 and 11
Our photos from the evening of September 10 show ripe clusters still hanging in the rows. On the morning of September 11, they show a grape harvester at the edge of the vineyard and a flatbed trailer stacked with bins.
The 2021 Pinot Noir has sold out; its wine page is still up.
