Seasonal News
Winter Vineyard & Winery News
In The Vineyard
All of the leaves have now fallen off of the vines at Titus Vineyards, leaving a landscape of barren, lignified canes. The sight is beautiful in its simplicity. Pre-pruning has started in the Zinfandel blocks during the dryer days of winter. Otherwise, the days are mostly wet with rain and all vineyard planning is being made indoors by the pot belly stove at the Titus Vineyards ranch house.At The Winery
Phillip and Eric are still working on the blends for all of our 2008 wines at the moment. Blending trials are the main winery activity apart from harvest and bottling. This takes place for about 9-10 months of the year. They take into consideration not only their own palates, best expressing our vineyards and that specific growing season as well as keeping a consistent, recognizable wine style from year to year. Besides blending trials, Eric and Phillip are very excited about the upcoming bottling and release of the 2009 Titus Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc. Most of the wines are undergoing, or have already gone through, malolactic fermentation. The wine is almost all in barrel and the already in barrel it has already gone through its first major racking with another racking around the corner.
The Wines of 2006
Overall, the 2006 growing season was long and steady with the exception of a cool spring with late rains, approximately 2 times normal rainfall for this time of year, and a heat spike in July. This climate generated above average yields for the year. All the grapes were harvested in alignment with our predictions avoiding everything coming in at once. Interestingly, harvest at Titus Vineyards began ten days later than we would typically end allowing the grapes to benefit from the extended hang time resulting in optimum ripeness without the threat of bad weather. The lengthy and mild 2006 growing season gifted these wines with good color lively aromatics, well balanced flavor profiles with beautiful concentration, and solid structure that will benefit the wines long term.
The Wines of 2005

