October Update from the Winemaker

Happy October from Napa Valley! We are in the middle of and exciting harvest season and wanted to bring everybody up to date on where we are.

The Sauvignon Blanc is finishing a long, cold fermentation. The majority is fermenting in stainless steel tanks, with a little bit of it in our cigar shaped barrels.

On September 13 Mira harvested 20.9 tons of Pinot Noir from Stanly Ranch Vineyard in Carneros. Three different clones were brought in: Pommard, 667 and 777. We used all three of our wood tanks as well as two small open top fermenters. On Sept 15 we brought in 1.9 tons of mixed clone Pinot Noir from Hyde Vineyard in Napa. All of these have completed alcoholic fermentation and we are in the process of draining and pressing and barreling down for malolactic fermentation and aging. Quality is looking very, very good.

On September 19 we brought in 4.89 tons of Chardonnay from Hyde Vineyard. The juice was simply incredible! The must is fermenting away, all in oak barrels, a few new but mostly used.

This coming week we will bring in the rest of our Chardonnay, and start getting into the Bordeaux red varieties, picking Petit Verdot this Wednesday, remaining true to our conviction that the finest wines are made when we get out of the way and let the grapes bask in the afternoon sun and revel in cool breezes to become what they destined to be.

Cheers!

Gustavo Gonzalez, Mira Winemaker