Harvest is almost here. Some Oregon vineyards have already started, and we'll begin in the coming days.

Fortunately, I think I’ve sorted out my barrel issue. Based on harvest yields, I’m anticipating needing 3-4 barrels (at 60 gallons each). I talked with several people about their thoughts on barrel strategy, and specifically whether I should get one of these new barrels with toasted heads. The general line of thinking revolved around the idea that it would be an interesting experiment if I was producing more wine. However, it’s just too risky with only 4 barrels of wine.

Therefore, I’m going with the 2 previously mentioned ½ barrels from Francois Freres. Since the wood to wine ratio is greater with the smaller barrels, these 2 small barrels will constitute my entire new oak allotment. I’ll augment these with 1or 2 “once-used” full barrels from Gypsy Dancer (hopefully). Any additional wine will go into neutral barrels.

I stopped by the Francois Freres office Monday afternoon. Rick wasn’t around, but I did see my fermentation tanks being unloaded at OVS (which is next door).

Yeast… Davison is out of the BM45 yeast, so I’ll troll the internet looking for a source. I’m leaning towards letting one batch start naturally with native resident yeast, and then inoculating it with commercial yeast.