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


The 2005 growing season got off to a slower, later start with a cool spring and late rains stretching into June. The long summer brought moderate heat that stretched into October. The sizable crop showed higher numbers of berries per cluster, and slightly lower sugar levels. Eric and Phillip did a tremendous amount of fruit thinning leading up to harvest which was the smart thing to do to keep the vines balanced through grape maturation with the goal of maximizing the flavor components in a cool, long vintage. Judicious thinning continued from late July through the first week of September. Due to the mild weather and large crop, harvest was later – by about two weeks – and gradual, with picking stretching out over several weeks. The lengthy 2005 growing season gifted these elegant wines with lively aromatics along with a beautiful balance of concentration and texture.