Nova Cadamatre

Harvest 2011: How California became Italy

This year has had it all.  We started with heavy frost on the Central Coast, rain during bloom and spring hail.  The craziness continued with a long temperate summer which was punctuated by few heat spikes (if you can call mid 90s a heat spike out here).  Growers fought Powdery Mildew and numerous invasive insect ...

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Harvest 2011 – Week 10 – It Rains… so I make Soup!

Well, we all knew it would get to this.  What we didn’t know is how much it would rain. Asti topped out at almost 2 1/2 inches of rain over last week.  We’re getting more today as well.  Rain during this time of year is challenging for several reasons.  1) When it’s raining there is no ...

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Harvest 2011 – Week 7 – The Waiting Game

This past week brought cooler temperatures to the regions around Asti Winery.  We saw a noticeable slowdown in sugar accumulation and thus a drop in tons being delivered as growers waited to see movement again.  This week is forecasted to be warmer and hopefully this will kick ripening back into gear.  Chardonnay is coming in ...

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Harvest 2011 – Week 6 – How One Decides When to Pick

We just finished Week 6 which saw the bulk of the Pinot Gris that we’re harvesting along with the first part of our Chardonnay.  We even brought in some Zinfandel last week at 26+ Brix! No joke!  Weather was a bit warmer last week with some days in the 90s but it has still remained fairly ...

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Harvest 2011 – Week 5 – Things REALLY get moving…

This week we’ve started seeing far more grapes than the previous week.  Our Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc were joined by our first Chardonnay of the season!  Fruit quality looks really nice and acids are still staying put thanks to the more moderate day time temperatures as well as the cool nights.  The Alexander Valley ...

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Vintage 2011, The Mid-point Check In.

When I last talked about how vintage 2011 was going in the NorthCoast was in bloom and the weather was truly dismal indeed!  Now after several weeks of beautiful, warm, sunny weather our outlook on the vintage is beginning to lift.  The rain during bloom did impact the crop levels negatively.  So far I’ve heard that ...

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Harvest Update 10-11-10

Now that I’ve been able to come up for air in the last two weeks I wanted to get a harvest update out. The weather is beautiful and warm. The grapes are ripening nicely. There’s not much more that a winemaker could ask for this time of year!

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Harvest 2010 notes continued…

While acids have been fantastic, sugars have been less than stellar. Now I’m not one to completely hang my hat on sugar but I know when people have problems getting white zinfandel ripe that we’re in for a troublesome year.

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The First week of Harvest 2010!

First of all I must apologize for not getting this post up last week but as you can imagine the first week of grapes is always crazy.  We received Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc from California’s Central Valley as well as some Alexander Valley Gewurztraminer.  This week we’ll be seeing our first Chardonnay as well.  ...

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A Reserve Tasting and Answering the Old Sulfite Question…

These past few weeks seem like they are anything but calm.  They’ve been packed with pre-harvest meetings and get togethers with friends that I’m not likely to see until harvest is over.  One of the highlights was a tasting class I taught down at Cellar 360 in San Francisco.  We had a great turn out ...

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