In 2008 we had our first small harvest of about 120 pounds.  This year we had 2,500 pounds of Petite Syrah and 300 pounds of Zinfandel.  Next year we are warned, we will have more than 3 tons.  This is a lot like telling a woman who had just gone through hard labor delivering a baby that she is going to have triplets next year.  Yikes!

We sold all but 230 pounds of the grapes to local wine makers, one of which was our buyer from last year who came back for twice as much, so he must have liked them.  Everyone who saw the grapes said they were spectacular, we thought so, but nice to have it validated by the real professionals.  Again, like babies, it is nice to have others think they are beautiful too.  We turned the front porch into the crush pad during harvest, and used our new motorized crusher destemmer.

We have turned part of the dining room into the winery and are making our first batch of Petite Syrah, putting into practice all we have learned in classes, tours of wineries and reading books.  It is a lot more complicated than one might think, and we all agree we would have paid a lot more attention in high school chemistry if we had known we would be making wine!    We had room to make more wine than we are, but we do not want to ruin too many of our hard earned grapes on a potential beginners bad batch of wine.  230 pounds of Petite Syrah became 22 gallons of crush, and has currently racked down to about 13 gallons of wine.  We tasted a bit when we racked it last month.  Given that it was only two weeks old, and had not yet gone through malolactic fermentation, it is not bad!

Except for the occasional replacement vine, we are now fully planted, at a little over 2,000 vines, half in Petite Syrah and half in Zinfandel, this is a bit over 3.5 acres.  The rest of the property (we have nearly 6 acres) will be for buildings, parking, and landscaping.  We now have several destination areas on the property to enjoy, The Love Love Tree, Hatfield View, Chinook Ridge and El Corazon de la Vina, the mediation labyrinth which was completed in October.

John Alonge, the director of the San Diego Wine & Culinary Institute, asked us to teach one of his classes at the Extension Department at San Diego State University on How to Start a Winery.  He knew we were just at the vineyard stage, but apparently that is what he wanted his students to hear about, so we put together a Power Point Presentation and had a good time teaching the two hour class.  He wants us back again next year, so I guess he liked it!  We have adapted the presentation to a shorter version for service clubs.  We will be presenting it to the Ramona Rotary Club on November 10^th, 2009.

Our Charter Membership is still open, with a wonderful group of friends and supporters in this select group.  Tthere are still opportunities for joining, and sponsoring vines and rows.  We encourage you to sign in on the Guest List page so you too may be able to enjoy our vineyard as much as we do.  (We reserve the right to extend membership and sponsorship on a case by case basis.) 

Cheers!  Norm  and  Elaine

________________________________________________________