Loss of biodiversity may be humanity’s greatest threat, even more than climate change. Food production is the primary cause. At Dodon, we seek to reverse this trend and thus enhance the ecosystem services that will allow us to reduce our physical and chemical footprint…
Every season, I’m dazzled that the buds break, shoots grow, inflorescences bloom, and fruit sets and ripens. It’s a bit like the sun coming up in the morning. Who can complain after that miracle? But some vintages are more successful than others. And despite the challenges, 2022 was more triumphant than most.
It has been more than a year since I last wrote to the club. Focused entirely on the logistics of keeping our staff healthy and employed, I had lost the ability to concentrate or convey a coherent story, even a summary of the 2020 vintage.
But now the 2021 harvest is over, and the wines are aging. So, it is time to reflect on what has happened and what it means and to uncover the more significant lessons from the vintage.
Loss of biodiversity may be humanity’s greatest threat, even more than climate change. Food production is the primary cause. At Dodon, we seek to reverse this trend and thus enhance the ecosystem services that will allow us to reduce our physical and chemical footprint…
The year started normally enough. The autumn had been good to us. Warm weather, absent the extreme rain of 2018, meant healthy vines entered dormancy. We enthusiastically embraced new cover crops, created a novel composting program designed to stimulate mycorrhizal fungi, and bought a flail mower to mulch vine pruning wood in the vineyard.
Polly and I are spending the holidays with our granddaughter, Juana Magdalena, in a little town called City Bell, just east of Buenos Aires. Polly’s three daughters are all here too, almost as much fun as Juana. As the summer solstice passes, our days are filled with family, exercise, asados, newspapers, a bit of sightseeing, and, for me, Spanish lessons. There is a fruit and vegetable farm within walking distance, and freshly butchered meat and chickens on the way, with none of the planting, weeding, feeding, watering, and picking chores of farm life.
The bird nets are all up, so our attention is quickly turning to preparing to bottle 800 cases of wine this Friday, August 18. I’m excited about all the wines, especially the 2015 Oronoco and Dungannon. We’re also getting ready for the harvest. The season has been shaping up nicely. Veraison came early, July 20 in Block 40 (Merlot), and went quickly, with superb uniformity across all the blocks. This means that the fruit will ripen evenly and allow us to fully extract all the flavors, always an exciting prospect for a winemaker. The modest rains have kept the wines in peak condition, allowing photosynthesis to work its magic, as have the cooler temperatures with lots of clear sunshine.
Winter is pruning time, and no matter how long we think it will last when viewed from November, the season always passes too quickly. There are lots of competing demands, and sometimes, like this year, it is cut short by warm weather. But like all cultural practices in the vineyard, we don’t cut corners.
Happy New Year! We just left the cellar, sniffing, tasting, listening, and stirring one last time in 2016. The ‘16 vintage is coming around nicely. The Sauvignon Blanc and Rosé are developing the flavors and weight that characterize the Dodon site. They’ll be ready for bottling March. The Chardonnay has finished themalolactic fermentation and is settling in for its year-long elévage. The primary fermentations (the conversion of sugar to alcohol) are yet to finish in the reds, but the familiar snap, crackle, pop from the bung hole prove the yeast are still working.
The Bordelais say that the quantity of the vintage is determined in June and its quality is determined in September. That’s not quite true, but now that we’ve finished bloom and the fruit has set, we have a good sense that that the 2016 vintage will be on the small side. It started with the early bud break at the end of a very warm March, followed by two hard freezes in early April, and then cool, wet weather through the rest of April and most of May. The necessary handwork in the vineyard was unpleasant, and managing the tractors was tricky and sometimes dangerous.
