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2000 Vintage Page
Nov. 2002: We had our first open house with tastings by appointments and it went really well. Thank you to all who made appointments and stopped by. If you are interested in future tastings please email me using this link: mike@fieldinghills.com.
Sept. 2002: Had the chance to share our 2000 vintage with the Governor of Idaho! Nice guy, good visit, he gave it a thumbs up!
Sept. 2002: The 2000 Cab scores a 91 in Wine Spectator! Click Here to see the review.
Here are recent pictures of the 2000 crop of Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon at Riverbend Vineyard in Mattawa, WA. Grapes were harvested in October 2000.
Harvest Summary:
Riverbend Cabernet- 4.0 tons
Riverbend Merlot- 1.8 tons
Beverly Cabernet- 2.6 tons
All wine into a combination of American and French oak. (80% new).
Activity/tasting notes:
July 2002: A wonderful evening of great people, great food, and equally important great wine occurred this month: our inaugural vintage release dinner. A hardy group of 85 daring people helped us celebrate the very first Fielding Hills Winery commercial vintage. Many thanks to those that attended. To see the menu click here, and for a fun picture click here.
June 2002:
We bottled the cabernet sauvignon! This time we had foil capsules and the
labels to put on, so at the end of the line we had a finished bottle.
Certainly very gratifying to see the end of all the hard work. Total
output from the 2000 crush is very close to 400 cases: 50 merlot, 50 RTW, an 300
cab. I will post pictures soon. I hope you get to enjoy a bottle of
this wine. Click here to go to ordering
information.
April 2002:
The
bottling of the first commercial vintage!
On 4/27/02 with a small group of friends we bottled 50 cases of Merlot and 50
cases of "The Blend". The new filler and corker worked extremely
well. Actual bottling time was about 3 hours for the 2 batches; the
fillers were the constraint, but I am sure we will go faster next time.
In the first picture I am "priming" the filler nozzles. The step is actual described just as you see it in the owners manual. I did not make this up. Next is the corker, which is a semi-automatic with a vacuum head. Just about as fast as you can put a bottle into it, it would pull the vacuum and insert the cork. Last picture is of the bottles going into the case. For those paying attention you will notice we did not label or put on the top capsule. These two pieces need to be special ordered and the label itself needs to be federally approved. So once we have the label and capsule ready, we will have to open up each case to apply. (Good excuse for another party!) Hopefully we will have the labels and capsules here for the Cabernet Sauvignon bottling and can include them in the process.
We also are unable to sell any wine until we have federally and state approved labels. :(
The
tastings: Well, getting people to give objective tasting comments is a lot
like asking them to look at pictures of your children and wanting to know if
they are cute. Well, of course all children are cute! That aside, I
do believe this is some really, really nice wine; the Merlot quite
"big" for a Merlot and the "Blend" even bigger and a fuller
taste. If and when you get a chance to drink some, I would appreciate your
comments (even if negative!).
I am also struggling with what to call the "Blend". Somehow Red
Table Wine just seems to be too simple. Any suggestions?
Lastly is a big, big thank you to all that helped. It could not have
happened without you. Everyone was very understanding of things being a
little disorganized since this was the first time using the filler and corker.
More pictures can be found here.
Some
stats:
Merlot- 76% Merlot; 24% Cabernet Sauvignon; 50 cases
The Blend- 60% Cabernet Sauvignon; 40% Merlot; 50 cases
November 2001: With the help of David, Dave and Curt, we topped and tasted from all the 2000 vintage barrels. WOW, we all were very pleased; even the samples from the glass carboys (the extra to top with) was great. Curt was the one with the most descriptions, next time I will remember to have him write down his comments. Tasting from 18 barrels sure ends up being a good time.
August 2001. I tasted most all wine from the barrels and was thankfully very pleased with how things are going. I had been a little nervous about what to expect due to all the trouble with M/L conversion earlier. The differences in taste between the different barrels is very noticeable. So with renewed confidence I have started planning the 2001 harvest.
April./May 2001. Time seems to fly by. It is now May 1st! The 2000 has had a terrible time getting through ML conversion. I re-inoculated early in April and have sent new samples to see if ML is finally done. I have been told this has been very common with other wineries and their 2000 crops. Wine that has not converted the malic acid to latic acid does not taste very good. It is enough to make a beginning winemaker very nervous!
March 2001. Mike Scott, myself, and Dave Parks went to a 2 day seminar at UC Davis to learn about "Fundamentals in table wine making". Very interesting class. Mainly taught by professors, so it was a little heavy on the academic side rather than the practical. Each day did have a session with a actual winemaker. Bottom line was pleasantly pleased that most everything learned there supported my approach and style of winemaking. Time again small lot techniques were shown to be best.
12/31/00 Carol, Karen and I racked the Merlot. First time with the Bull Dog Pup. Interesting experience. The pump works great and everything worked out fine. Small lot, handcrafted winemaking is a lot of preparing to do something and clean up, with not much in the middle!
1/01 Topped all the wine. Everything is tasting very good. Mike Scheble was by to taste too!
12/00 I did a quick barrel tasting of the Merlot and Cabernet. Took several samples from the different barrels: new French, new American, used neutral. A surprising difference. None of the tastes had any hint of "veginess" that I tasted on the 1999 a year ago. So I think things are progressing as they should and I am again cautiously optimistic that the 2000 vintage is going to be very good. After tasting all the samples (4 or 5), I mixed them all together for a last and was very pleased the mix.
10/20/00 We pressed the Riverbend Cab and this means everything is now out of primary and into barrels.
10/13/00 We pressed the Beverly Cab into 6 barrels and some glass. The Cabernet really tastes pretty bad at this point (which it is supposed to). This hopefully means it has lots of tannins and will ultimately be a great wine.
10/12/00 We crushed 4 tons of Riverbend Cab Thursday afternoon.
10/7/00 We pressed the Riverbend Merlot Saturday afternoon and filled 4 barrels. Had lots of help and fun. The Beverly Cabernet Sauvignon is fermenting nicely. Should be ready to press this Friday (10/13/00). Hope to pick the Riverbend Cabernet Sauvignon on Thursday. So far things are going very well. The 2000 vintage should be excellent.
10/3/00 Here is the Cabernet Sauvignon crush from Beverly Orchard. We plowed through about 2.6 tons of grapes.
The wine barrels and racks for the 2000 crop are now in. 19 in all. The place really is starting to look like a winery. Big thanks to Megan (my 6 year old) for all her help. It is a very daunting sight to see. I can tell that a year from now things will be very tight in my storage areas.
The grapes in the vineyard continue to ripen very slowly. They seem to be hanging in the 23 brix range. We originally thought we would be picking during the first part of September... but now it appears we will not start until the first part of October. Things will be getting very busy real soon.
Here is the Merlot harvest at Riverbend. The picture on the right show Gus and Brian looking at and discussing the finer points of quality grape growing.
More harvest pictures....
