VINEYARD NEWS

2008 Winter/Spring in the Vineyard
We received a much needed 10.4" of normal rainfall this winter. It recharged the aquifers, flushed out the salt build up near the roots and provided a good start for the vines in 2008. We also did not have any extreme cold spells this winter like last year (11 degrees F) - just the normal Paso Robles chill. The vineyard woke up budding starting in early March. By the end of March, the upper Syrah and Syrah Noir have 1"-2" of shoot growth, the lower Syrah, Grenache Noir & Cabernet Franc have a good bud break and the Tempranillo, Petite Sirah and Tannat are just budding.  The Cabernet Sauvignon and Mourvedre are still asleep as usual. The cover crop benefited from good and timely rain.

In the lower 10 acres we're taking organic, we planted the alternating cover crops. The rows that we threw the prunings in and later shredded we planted a mix of perennial ryegrass - cabo, fiji and kokomo - sounds like paradise! The other alternating rows were planted with a wildflower erosion mix of 15% wildflowers, 60% clovers, 10% Blando Brome, 10% Parabinga Medic and 5% Zorro fescue in addition to some wild radishes and turnips were added. We also planted the lower arroyo with the perennial ryegrass and wildflower/turnip mixes - so we have a lot blooming in the vineyard attracting only beneficial insects.

Oscar Pacheco has joined us to help out in the vineyard. Oscar deftly cleared the weeds along the vine rows with our Weed Badger.

2007 Harvest
We finished our '07 harvest on the last day of October , between unforecasted but well-needed rain storms.
The ripening stretch of the season has been excellent - hot but not to hot days, and cool but not too cool evenings.
Contrasted by last winter's extreme cold spells (11 degrees F) and extreme lack of rain (35% of normal), it has required
significant crop and canopy management, resulting in smaller clusters and berries - AND fabulous quality fruit.

This year's fruit quality would not have been possible without the assistance of Michael Walsh "bird-dogging" our vineyard
and the outside growers to produce balanced ripe grapes. It was a busy year with 26 harvests in 9 Vineyards, harvesting
104 tons of 11 varietals of wine grapes. We sold 9 tons from our vineyard and purchased 74 from outside vineyards.


(L-R) Vineyard consultant Michael Walsh, Winemaker/owner Bob Shore, and Assistant winemaker Mauricio Marchant at Arroyo Robles Vineyard

2007 Crush
We finished our '07 Crush of 95 tons (2 times our previous high) on the last Friday of the year. This effort was possible due to the assistance of a new additional winemaker, Mauricio Marchant. Across the board, all of the '07 fruit came in with great color, ripeness, and intensity. We also added some new equipment this year to supplement our Suter EPC-50 wine press. An elevated Bucher Vaslin TRV-35 vibrating presort table and a Bucher Vaslin E2 crusher/destemmer provided an usually clean must for fermentation. In addition, we post-sorted almost 50% of our grapes with a vibrating sorting table provided by Steve Anglim of Anglim Winery. We are also testing a Seguin Moreau 600L rotary oak fermentation barrel. Because of the improvements in the vineyards and winery, we think 2007 will become an ultra-premium vintage year for Arroyo Robles Wines.

Estate Vineyard
This year, we had a small harvest of our first grapes from the 7 acres we grafted in early 2006 to Cabernet Sauvignon (04 clone), Grenache Noir, Tannat and Petite Sirah. In 2008 , we should have a full harvest from these blocks.

The remaining 17 acres produced some intense fruit from the Tempranillo, Mourvedre and Syrah blocks.

This year , we also started farming the southern 10 acre block of the vineyard using organic techniques which included:

                                  - organic acids to buffer the water pH;
                                  - clove oil for clearing sucker shoots and weeds;
                                  - chrysanthemum oil as a pesticide;
                                  - beneficial bacteria as a growth enhancer;
                                  - seaweed extract to enhance cell growth and add potassium;
                                  - and biological fertilizers.

We are encouraged by the organic results this year and will continue to improve over the next 2 years to become certified as an organic wine grape grower.

As a side benefit to our organic efforts this fall, we planted an approximate 2-acre beneficial insectary in the lower arroyo. The grasses, wildflowers and perennials will keep beneficial insects around a longer time to dine on bad bugs.

OLD NEWS

Crush notes from the Vineyard and Winery: Harvest 2006
After a year of pruning, grafting, planting and watering, we're now at
CRUSH- harvesting grapes and making wine. We've already harvested our
Syrah, Tempranillo, some Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. This years crop is
significantly smaller, but of great quality and intensity. The cool spring
and August heat developed the smaller crop. The harvest weather is now
"dialing in" the fruit with 45-50 degree nights and 85-95 degree days.
With some of the early Syrah we made a faulous rosé - destemed and crush
soaked for 4 hours and then pressed. It was then barrel fermented sur lie
using new Rhone yeasts that developed great fruit aromas. The rest of the
Syrah has been pressed and the velvety purple wine was put in barrels for
aging - stay tuned. We'll update you with a complete 2006 Crush update in
November.