The 2006 harvest season once again brought family, neighbors and friends to Condor’s Hope to join in the age-old tradition of a
community harvest. In between tasting the grapes (from the vine
and the bottle), barbecues and music under the stars,
we managed to pick over 17,000 pounds of grapes.
Late, heavy rains during the early growing season, and no frost during April or May, got this 2006 vintage off to a great start. A hot early June, followed by a very hot 4 weeks into July terminated with thundershowers and lightning fires in the Sierra Madre. But then starting July 23rd, temperatures moderated until harvest, giving us 4 weeks of perfect ripening weather for Shiraz and 6 weeks for Zinfandel. This exceptional period of constant warm days and cool nights gave us excellent balance of sugars and acid. The Rosé harvest of Zinfandel, Mourvédre, and Mission grapes followed two weeks later. And for the first time at Condor’s Hope, we had a late Zinfandel harvest in mid-October that produced a very uniform second crop with lots of sugar and extra hang time. We thank all of our harvesters for an exceptional season and look forward to a special 2006 vintage.
