Though the vines are lean and brown, devoid of the green lushness that will appear and flourish in less than a month, much is being done in the vineyards to prepare them for another growing season. Pruning actually started before the holidays, and continues with the final vines being trimmed just this month. The excitement for budbreak is palpable!

This is arguably the busiest season of the year in our winery, with the exception of crush, of course. Staff is inundated with the final work of blending all the red wines for bottling. The 2015 vintages have been barrel aging for the last year, and now have to be taken out of barrels, evaluated and blended together to make the finished wine that will be bottled in the next few weeks. Within the next 3 months, we expect to bottle new vintages of over 14 different wines!

At the same time, staff is evaluating the quality of the 2016 vintages, which were just harvested last fall. This includes over 250 separate blocks, tasted blind and rated by Bogle winemakers, enologists, the winegrowing team, as well as Bogle family members. Results are shared with our growers, with successes championed and needed improvements noted. This allows changes to be made for the upcoming growing season, and assures a fantastic 2017 harvest.

Though everyone seems busy this time of year, we welcome the start of another vintage year for the winery. Keep your eyes peeled for our new vintages out there…and know that a lot of hard work went into creating some great, quality wines for your dinner table!

The photo above shows the scene at the Bogle lab as we tasted different lots of the 2016 Zinfandel.