We've had a busy couple of days at Drava. We got our second and third lots for this year's harvest - Syrah from Arbor Vineyards and Petite Sirah from Mohr-Fry Ranches. Both are Certified Sustainable winegrapes. I've given them a few days of cold soak and later today I'll start the fermentation. Our winery is full! Ellie helping us out crushing Syrah

Due to some very cool weather in early to mid-August, we have a bit of a break. We've pressed off both Zins and the Syrah should be ready to harvest any day now. I'm happy that our new press is working great! It only takes about 3 hours to press one ton, and our press is sized perfectly to press a half ton in one load. And it's easy to clean. This press is tiny by winery standards, but it's nice to be so hands-on. Please enjoy a few pictures, and thanks to Mat and Paul

Second lot of grapes in this week, and it's our second Zinfandel lot, this from the esteemed Mohr-Fry Ranches. Like the Maley Vineyard Monday, these grapes are Lodi Rules Certified Sustainable. The Maley Zin is in western Lodi, while the Mohr-Fry is more central. These came in pretty ripe, around 27 Brix, and there were a fair amount of raisins in the clusters though we tried to sort them out. Looks like we are going to have some high-alcohol Zins this year, we'll see afte

Hello wine lovers. We start a new vintage. Like last year, it's very nice to be harvesting in cool weather. It's nice to have cool fruit when we pick up the freshly hand-harvest grapes in the morning, and crushing them outside is cool also. This vintage, we are lined up to bring in two different Lodi old vine Zinfandels, Syrah, and Petite Sirah. Like last year, all of our grapes will be Certified Sustainable. Today was the first of the Zinfandels, this one grown by Todd