Flaherty Wines

We knew this was going to be a late harvest based on the progress of the grapes over the summer, but I was still surprised by how long we had to wait. It seemed like the whole country was crushing, while we were just sitting around. It’s a bit nerve-racking to be doing nothing while a big job looms on the not-so-distant horizon.

Our harvest started in a big way on Monday, April 12th. We received just over four tons of Syrah from Gonzalo Manzur. This fruit is from his new vineyard in the Escorial sector of the Aconcagua Valley, on the other side of San Felipe from the Encón Vineyard, (our traditional source for Syrah and Cabernet). Escorial is a cooler area right in the wind corridor of the valley, and it’s on the Panquehue side of the train tracks, so it gets more fog. We would normally expect those conditions to delay ripening, but this is the vineyard’s first vintage and the vines are carrying a smaller crop. These two factors typically cause the vines to ripen the fruit earlier.

The grapes looked very clean on arrival, with good sugars and ripe flavors. The profile includes some interesting cool climate characteristics like carpaccio. I managed to grab a liter of juice out of one of the bins to make a batch of sorbet, and it is yummy!

Since we were crushing on a Monday, our usual crew of friends was not around to help out, so Gonzalo sent over a crew. They spent four hours crushing the fruit into five bins, and Ed then worked late into the night finishing up. The fermentations got started right away in four of the bins. They’re going a little hotter than we’ve seen in the past. This is the first time we’ve had so many lots peaking at once, and cooling is proving to be a challenge. We have our heat exchanger unit in one bin, and we’re rotating ice blocks (frozen in plastic jugs) through the others.