Carbon, Texas
The Cabernet Franc is ready to make its way to Lost Oak Winery, come join the fun on Saturday Aug 31.
We will begin at first light (about 7:00 am) and will go until the grapes are all picked or it gets too hot. See earlier posts for harvest details.
The forecast is calling for rain for Tues afternoon into Wed so we’re going to harvest the Syrah tomorrow morning (Tues Aug 27) beginning at 7:00 am.
I know that last minute notice on a weekday is not ideal for most folks but if we could get a few extra hands it would be most appreciated. There’s not a lot of fruit (about 1,200 lbs) so it should go quickly.
If by any chance you can make it let us know. Thank you!
The vines are working their magic and several of the varieties (Cabernet Franc and Malbec) are likely to be ready for harvest next weekend (Aug 31-Sept 2). We’ll send out an email when harvest dates are confirmed.
The Sauvignon Blanc harvest was a little bumpy this year but still very successful.
We started at 7:00 am on Saturday morning and our amazing volunteers picked 5,075 lbs of Sauvignon Blanc in just over 2 hours before we got rained out. We announced we would regroup the next morning (Sunday) and held our breath to see what the weather would do. The forecast at bedtime on Saturday was for rain from 7:00-9:00 on Sunday morning. We awoke to find there had been a brief shower at 3 am and headed out to the vines. After several smart phone/weather app consultations there was a brief mention of the forecast which called for rain again at noon and once again the volunteers picked like crazy and the remaining 4,236 pounds was in the bins and on its way to Lost Oak Winery for processing by 9:30 a.m. – wow!
Here’s the math: 9,311 pounds of Sauvignon Blanc (4.66 tons). That’s the second highest quantity ever picked (it beat the inaugural harvest of 9,221 lbs in 2014 by just 90 pounds).
Our deepest thanks to all of you who helped pull this one off!
Upcoming harvests: these are estimates based on the number of days from bud break and from bloom as well as comparison with previous seasons. However every season is different and the grapes have been known to do things entirely differently than expected. We test weekly until the numbers get close to the winery goal (°Brix, pH, maturity, flavor, color) and then test every couple of days to (hopefully) narrow it down to the optimum day. We do our best to notify folks as soon as the date is set but generally we don’t know more than 5 days out.
Here are the possible date ranges in our lineup:
Cabernet Franc (Lost Oak Winery): early September
Malbec (Pemberton Cellars): mid September
Cabernet Sauvignon (Wintergrass Winery): late September
The Sauvignon Blanc is ready to make its way to Lost Oak Winery.
We will begin at first light (about 7:00 am) and will go until the grapes are all picked or it gets too hot.
We’ll have lots of water, Gatorade, and of course food/snacks 🙂 We’ll also have sunscreen and bug spray (just in case).
We have harvest shears here for you to use. Some folks like to wear a glove on one hand since it can prevent the shears from cutting your fingers instead of the grape stem. Many folks sit on an overturned bucket but you can bring a chair or stool if you prefer.
You do not have to carry the full buckets, just fill them and leave them in the row. The vines are not prickly so you don’t have to wear long sleeves/pants unless you prefer to for sun protection, and a hat is a good idea. There may be some fire ants in a few spots so shoes/socks are usually better than sandals but choice of footwear is up to you.
If you are able to make it and can let me know it always helps to have a head count, but feel free to come even if you don’t reply ahead of time – all pickers are appreciated :0
Things are still busy in the vineyard. The frequent and generous rainfall this spring and summer caused the vines to grow luxuriantly. We’re spending plenty of hours wrapping shoots on the top wire to keep the aisles clear and make sure the grapes get lots of nice sun and wind to prevent disease and ripen the fruit.
Harvest season is fast approaching. Some of the varieties are on course with our harvest date predictions while others are moving faster.
This season in addition to Lost Oak Winery we are working with two additional wineries. Many of you already know Tyler and Amy Bower. Tyler has been helping us at harvests and buying small quantities of grapes from us since the inaugural harvest in 2014. He is now up and running as Wintergrass Winery. Tyler will be crafting wines with our Vermentino and Cabernet Sauvignon.
We also welcome Jeff Pemberton of Pemberton Cellars in Granbury who will be taking good care of the Malvasia Bianca and Malbec.
Lost Oak winery will continue their wonderful work with our Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc.
The Malvasia Bianca will be ready this week, our tentative harvest date is Wed July 31. The Sauvignon Blanc will possibly be ready this coming Saturday (Aug 3).
As you know the grapes don’t always do what is expected :0
We will send an official ‘harvest is on’ email when we have everything confirmed.
We’re happy to report that Lost Oak Winery has brought home 4 more Bronze medals for wines made with our fruit!
Cabernet Franc 2017:
2018-2019 Texas International Wine Competition – Bronze
2019 Lone Star International Wine Awards – Bronze
2019 TEXSOM International Wine Awards – Bronze
Sauvignon Blanc 2018: 2019 Lone Star International Wine Awards Bronze
Both wines are available for sale at Lost Oak Winery as well as on their website. There is also a link on the Lost Oak Winery website for shipping wines outside of Texas which lists which the states to which wines can be shipped.
Congratulations to Lost Oak Winery for a total of 14 medals at these three competitions! We’re looking forward to the 2019 harvest season and more excellent vintages to come.
I couldn’t resist trying to catch a photo of the beautiful skies over the vines after the storms blew through last week. We had heavy rain and high winds that snapped a few tree limbs and blew out a section of our wood fence. Thankfully the vines came through just fine.
It’s been a VERY wet spring here in North Texas. We started off the year with relatively even bud break and by the end of April the shoots were about 2 feet high on average. With the continuation of generous weekly rain the vines have gone into overdrive. They’re well past the top wire and we’ve been working diligently to keep up with the growth. Rather than hedging we prefer to use palissage (wrapping the shoots on the top wire – see the July 2018 post). It’s a great feeling to look down the aisles and see the finished product!
On the plus side we haven’t had any hail at our site so far, and it looks like we’ll have plenty of fruit to harvest. For those who like to take part in picking the grapes, we’ll be sure to keep you updated via the email list as harvest season approaches.
With winter pruning finished ahead of schedule we enjoyed a brief respite before the growing season was upon us. Because temperatures varied from 21° to 80°F in the early spring we were curious (and a little worried) to see if the vines would enter budburst ahead of schedule and be vulnerable to frost damage since we’ve seen freezing temps as late as April in our area. We’re happy to report that vines were not ahead of schedule and we did not experience any late freezes – whew! We’ve also been fortunate that the hail storms that were forecast for our area fell apart and/or went around us. With rain occurring weekly the vines have grown quickly but we’re managing to keep them in shape.
