Seyval Blanc at J Rose Vineyards in Damascus, MD
For me, at least, the 2008 harvest is underway. It began on Saturday, the 13th of September when I picked 128# of Seyval Blanc at J Rose Vineyards in Damascus, MD. I was feeling really discouraged because Hurricane Hanna had dropped all kinds of water on us last week and then we got lots more rain all day Friday and most of Friday night — ending just before the Saturday harvest. So I didn’t have my hopes up…
But thanks to Jan Rieke’s excellent skills and a lay to the land that allows good drainage, the numbers were about all I could have hoped for: 21 Brix, 6.6 g/L of titratable acidity, and a pH of 3.17. I would have been pretty happy with those numbers even if it hadn’t rained!
Looks like Jan doesn’t have a web site but you can see the vineyard site on Google maps here.
A hopper full of Seyval...
My Seyval came from the vineyard at the far lower left. Chardonnay and table grapes are in the vineyard at the lower right, and Cabernet Sauvignon occupies the two vineyards nearest the house.
The grapes have been pressed, the juice cleared, the yeast pitched, and fermentation is underway. On Saturday the 20th it’s back to Jan’s to get some Muscat, which produced an incredible dessert wine for me in 2007.
A hopper on the hopper!
Following that it looks like Cab Franc and Lemberger from Bob Scott over at Bellendene Vineyards in early October.
Finally, the Napa Cab Sauv and Lodi Malbec will bring up the rear through the only guy I go to for out-of-state grapes, Rob Hamilton at MD Crush.
I’ll be reporting on all of those soon enough. Stay tuned!
