This Harvest marks our 40th Harvest here at Hafner Vineyard. We (Parke and Sarah) wanted to share a look back over the Harvests to share some stories, what has changed and what is the same. We also share some photos from the archives from the early 1980s. We hope you enjoy it, and we are excited what the next 40 Harvests hold.
I have painted the cave entrance before; the focus then was springtime and the blooming of the dogwoods that grace the entrance. This time, I wanted to portray a day at work with both doors open and the stacks of barrels that sometimes seem endless. First I take several photos from different vantage points and together with Scott, we decide on the perspective. I've painted barrels many times before, so those were not the challenge on this project. Instead it was the rock wall and its varying shades of grays and greens. You'll see someone made a guest appearance in the watercolor as well!
As the Holidays approach, harvest seems a distant memory, but for the cellar team, "harvest" is not complete until the fermentations are finished and the wines are aging in barrels. I have the long but fun job of monitoring each fermentation, taking the sugars daily and sampling the wines as they progress. I share my findings with our winemaker (and my husband), Parke Hafner, who makes suggestions about our next plans with each lot for the coming days. Follow along on my harvest journey through the blog.
As winemakers, tasting is our number 1 job and in these days of “shelter in place”, tastings are the perfect diversion. While technically we are “working” when we taste, we thought it would be fun to share a tasting game with you. We’ve named it the “Somm Game”. We don’t take it very seriously. It's a way to add a little lightheartedness to your evening and practice learning what you like in a wine. Essentially, it is a blind tasting where you try to guess the wine. Normally, we play the game with our adult children, but with the current situation of coronavirus, we are doing it virtually.
Walks through the vineyard with our yellow lab, Annie, have inspired many of my illustrations. Over the years, I have painted the flowers that grow here in the vineyard or on the hills. Some of them are native plants, like the blue Lupine, the California Poppies and the field Mustard. Others (like the Bachelor Buttons and Legion of Honor Poppies), we have sown in our “insectary rows” to provide habitat for beneficial insects. Here I share some techniques I used to create them.
