Flaherty Wines

It’s been incredibly busy around here for the past few weeks. The kids started back to school in early March, which is always a hectic time as we race around ordering books and buying supplies and sizing uniforms. Add in an inordinate amount of editing and translating work for me, plus an early harvest for Ed at Tarapacá, and it feels like we’ve been running nonstop for weeks. The grapes, in contrast, have been tranquilly doing their thing, gently ripening in the late summer sun. The vineyard continues to be somewhat uneven, with more vigorous plants on the outer edges and thinner plants in the middle, but overall it looks healthy and is carrying a good crop.

And that brings us to the present moment: the calm before the storm. We’ve settled into the routines of the new school year, and we’ve made our preparations for harvest. The fermentation bins are ready to go, the new barrels will be arriving soon, the yeast and nutrients have been purchased, and the crusher-destemmer is lined up. Now we just have to wait for the grapes to peak. We’re planning to harvest the tempranillo in one week. The syrah will come in about a week or so behind that, followed by the cabernet. We’re also experimenting with a barrel’s worth of carmenère this year, to try out a new vineyard. But for now, we wait.