Passport Weekend, Dry Creek Valley – April, 2012
Passport Weekend, Gopfrich Winery, Dry Creek Valley, Healdsburg, CA from Barry Chaiken on Vimeo.
As usual at this time of the year, we are very busy pruning the grapevines in the vineyard. We have had some very pleasant weather so far this winter, actually putting us a little ahead of our pruning schedule. However, this could rapidly change if we get some desired / needed rain. Our objective is to have it all completed by mid-March since we usually have bud break around the first week in April.
We are almost completely sold out of all our 2009 vintage wines. We will begin to bottle our 2010 vintage wines very soon. We try to save our winery work for the rainy days and there just haven’t been very many of these this year. I am very pleased with how the wines are tasting and I believe they will turn into a very nice vintage all across the board.
2009 Zinfandel – We put this wine aside for the wine club since we are currently sold out of it since the Fall of last year. This Zin is made in a slightly lighter style than quite a few of the Zinfandels currently coming out of the Dry Creek Valley which are very high in alcohol and almost over ripe in my opinion. I am not a big fan of real high alcohol wines so I tell people the winemaker has to make a wine that he likes and of course we hope that you enjoy it also. J It is a perfect accompaniment for the springtime barbeque / grill type foods.
2008 Cabernet Sauvignon – We always release our Cabernets one year later than the other wines in our program. This wine has been in new high end French Oak barrels for over two years and then aged in the bottle for approximately a year. This Cab is nicely balanced between the flavors, acid, tannins, and alcohol. The tannins are definitely present, but nice and ripe and very approachable at this time. Together with a nice finish, this makes a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon of which we are very proud.
The next wine club shipment will go out mid – April. We are trying to avoid shipping any wine in the warmer months, so your three wine club shipments will go out in November, February and April.
The harvest season this year was one with many problems to overcome for all grape growers of Sonoma County. We had an unusually cool spring and some late spring rain during the bloom period which resulted in a below average fruit set. This in conjunction with a rather significant rainfall earlier than usual right in the middle of harvest resulted in a botrytis (bunch rot) outbreak in many vineyards. This situation affected most all growers in the county. Fortunately we were able to harvest before the rain and did not have any difficulty. We feel fortunate that our harvest went well and the quality of the fruit was excellent. The 2011vintage will result in some very nice wines.
Contrary to the current economic situation our wine sales have been good. This is due mainly to the great support from you, our wine club members, for which we are very grateful! The 2011 wines have all completed fermentation, pressed out, and are already in the barrels. Even though the growing season was difficult – we have been very selective with the grapes that we harvest for our own production and feel very confident that we will be able to produce some exceptional wines from this 2011 vintage year.
We are extremely pleased with these two wines and are proud to be able to share them with you and sincerely hope that you will enjoy our enthusiasm for both of them.
We want to thank all of you who were able to join us at our Harvest Party in October. It is always great fun for us to be able to share this event with you.
Cheers and Happy Holidays,
Göpfrich Winery