The tradition of Condor’s Hope community harvests continued in 2008 with friends and family gathering for three harvests. Our Shiraz was harvested on August 18th, followed by the larger harvest of Zin which took place on September 6th. Two weeks later it was time for the final harvest of the grapes that make our Rosé. The second dry season in a row kept yields low for a second year in a row. Thanks to an exceptionally wet January, we were able to get some soil moisture recharge, but a very dry February and March kept us from overcoming the drought of the previous year.

Cover crop growth was again minimal, and we completed cultivation and preparation of the "dust mulch" by the end of March, much earlier than normal. (The dust mulch is prepared after the last rain of the season.) We began to rely on our back-up solar powered well and drip system in late April, but the stress of the drought still reduced yields considerably. And then to complicate matters more, we had a late frost on April 19 that burned back the earlier leafing Shiraz which lowered yields further. The summer was quite warm, with several hot spells and a warm August. Ripening was fairly uniform with higher sugars due to the drought and heat. We harvested and crushed the Zinfandel with high sugars (above 26.0 brix). Even though yield was low and grapes were small in size, the Shiraz came in nicely at 24.8 brix. The 2008 rosé will be available in early summer of 2009. The 2008 zin and shiraz will be released in 2010. We look forward to sharing them with you!