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2001 Vintage

The 2001 harvest was another very  very good year for grapes out of Washington State, particularly out of the Mattawa area.    The hot August 2001 weather worked its magic.

Harvest Summary:
RBO Merlot; single cluster- 1 ton; 2 barrels
RBO Merlot; regular- 1 ton; 2 barrels
Beverly Cab- 2 tons; 4 barrels
RBO Cab; single cluster- 1 ton; 2 barrels
RBO Cab; regular- 4 tons; 7 barrels
RBO Syrah- 1/2 ton; 1 barrel

Barrels used:  80% new consisting of French, American, U-Stave American, and new this year Russian barrels!

Volumes bottled:
Cabernet Sauvignon-     270 cases
Merlot-                          42 cases
Syrah-                            16 cases
Riverbend Red                85 cases
GRAND Total-              413 cases

  
Pictures of bottling the 2001!

New activity reports now read newest first; so here goes!

Bottled all the 2001 vintage on 5/17-18/2003.  Hope to release for sale later this summer.

May 2003:  Barrel Tasting on May 4, 2003.

March 2003:  Topped and tasted from all barrels and things are progressing very nicely.  Current plan is to bottle the weekend of 5/17-18/03.

November 2002:  Wow, time flies.  We racked and have topped several times since June.  I continue to be very encouraged by how things are tasting.  We had an open house this month and did several barrel tastings from the 2001.  The clear hit was the Syrah.  I have been told I have to bottle some straight Syrah!

June2002:  Topped all again!

April 2002:  Racked all 2001.  Things just get better and better!

March 2002:  Topped and tasted all wines in barrels.  Wow what a fun afternoon.  Tasted from 31 barrels (we forgot to taste from 1).  Everything continues to taste very good.

February 2002:  Racked the Syrah and most all the RBO Cabernet (4 barrels still working on MLF).  Took a sample of the Syrah to the Superbowl party and it was a hit.

January 2002:  Sent another set of samples in for M/L testing and all but a couple have completed.

January 2002:  With the sample tests showing the Merlot and Beverly Cab M/L complete, those barrels were racked and sulfited.  The RBO Cab needs more time.  All racked wine was tasted and the single cluster RBO Merlot is the best tasting at this point.

December 2001:  sent several samples in to check for MLF.  Some complete some, not.  At least it appears I will not have the problems encounter with the 2000 vintage.  The Beverly Cab looked and tasted quite different, so I sent the lab a separate sample of this.  The lab reported they felt it would be OK with time and SO2.

November 1, 2001:  So the 2001 harvest, crush and press is now all complete.  All 2001 barrels are at 68 degrees and undergoing secondary fermentation (MLF).  Hope to confirm ML completion by the end of the year and will then do the first racking.

October 25, 2001:  Pressed the 6 fermentors of Cab (2 from Beverly and 4 from Riverbend) into barrels.  This was another long day.  Thank you to those that helped; particularly Dave W.

October 15, 2001:  Pressed the single cluster Cab from Riverbend.  Combination of free run and press.  All wine is showing beautiful colors.

October, 14 2001:  Pulled the Syrah off the skins.  Had enough product to take only free run.

October 13, 2001:  Crushed 5.25 tons of Cabernet on Saturday.  Wow, what a long day (and evening).  Thank you to all that helped.  Filled 6 fermentors with product.  When this is ready to come off the skins it will be a big day!  Expect to do this on 10/25/01.  Let me know if you want to help.

October 6, 2001:  Crushed small amounts of Syrah and single cluster Cabernet.  The Syrah colors up very quickly.  It turned a beautiful pink almost immediately!  As with all the wine this year, I am using a mixture of yeasts: 1/3 Pasteur Red and 2/3 EC1118.

September 29, 2001:  All the Merlot is now in the barrels.  It appears MLF is working just fine.  The single cluster has settled out quite a bit and has a beautiful color.  Cab harvest should be late next week.

September 20, 2001:  We pressed the "single cluster" Merlot into 2 barrels and several glass carboys.  At the same time we started MLF and things looked very good.  Also that night we crushed another 2000 pounds of Merlot (regular, not single cluster).  We now anticipate Cabernet being picked the first week in October.

September 14, 2001:  We crushed 2000 pounds of Merlot from the Riverbend site in Mattawa.  These came from a test block of "single cluster" vines where we thinned out clusters to maximize the quality potential.  As with all our grapes, they were hand harvested into 25 pound picking lugs and crushed the same day as harvested.