Autumn has arrived here at Kuleto Estate, and in its quiet, rustic mountain way, it’s spectacular here at our winery. I love fall in the Napa Valley. Everything seems to slow down, and I mean everything—nature, people, meals, even conversations. The roads are quieter, the tasting rooms are more relaxed and intimate, and I even think the wine pours are heavier. While summer is definitely high season in wine country, for me, autumn and the early months of winter are almost as good as it gets around here.
At our estate high above Lake Hennessey, the 2008 growing season has come to an end. In the vineyards, the last of our grapes were harvested almost a month ago, and in the winery, the final newly fermented wines are going into oak to begin their barrel aging. After getting off to a fairly wild start with an early-September heat wave, the harvest settled down and ended up being a relatively relaxed affair. In their early stages, newly fermented wines are often quite raw and rustic, and yet, already the 2008’s are showing stunning colors, awesome aromatics and plush, soft tannins. Every new lot of Cabernet I taste seems better than the last, and our Syrah appears to be hitting new heights. As a vintner, it’s a pretty great feeling to put another harvest to bed, and to know that the quality is this good!
The 2008 harvest also brought other satisfactions. This year, my 12-year-old son Daniel spent several weeks shadowing our great winemaker Dave Lattin—learning the ropes, so to speak. Though he has spent much of his young life here on the estate, playing in the vineyards and helping out, it felt like the right time for Daniel to dig a little deeper into the soil. With this in mind, he spent time in the vineyards, cellar, lab and winery listening to, and learning from, Dave.
I was pleased to hear that Daniel was both interested and inquisitive, and just as important, appreciative of the experience. After all, great wineries exist from generation to generation. They grow and evolve in a way that I find fascinating. To see Daniel take a growing interest in the inner-workings of Kuleto Estate makes everything I do here all the more rewarding.