The Benziger Family Winery has just released the 2007 and 2008 vintages of the Puma Springs Cabernet as part of their single vineyard program.  The wines are a limited production bottling available only at the Benziger Family Winery tasting room in Glen Ellen and on-line. 

2010 proved to be another very challenging year in the vineyard, with the weather playing havoc all year long. Unlike 2009 we did manage to get a small harvest this year, but both quality and quantity were well below what we had hoped for.

Merlot grapes being harvested and sorted, harvest 2010.

This summer after a three year process Puma Springs Vineyards finally gained the coveted Demeter Biodynamic® and USDA certification for the grapes grown at the farm.

With weather reported directly from our vineyard and updated several times a day.

2009 is proving to be a challenging year in the vineyard so far.  Early and heavy rains in October are playing havoc with the harvest this year.

So far this year we have had a generally mild summer which has delayed the maturity of the grapes such that the sugars in the grapes are still below what the winemaker would ideally like.

In September we have a nice warm spell which did allow the sugars in the Merlot to reach the point where we could harvest.  This year we harvested the Merlot at night, a practice that is becoming much more common, as it allows the grapes to picked while it is cool, and then transported to the winery before they warm up and start fermenting in the picking bin.

Now with the heavy rains in October we are starting to see some mold on the grapes, so we have been busy dropping moldy fruit and pulling the leaves off the vines to allow the grapes to dry out.

We managed to harvest the Petit Verdot in mid October, but the Cabernet Sauvignon was still not ready to harvest and we needed the ground to dry out before we can get equipment in to harvest.

At the end of October with the Cabernet Sauvignon still low on sugar and showing signs of considerable mold, in conjunction with the winemaker at Benziger we made the very difficult decision to not harvest the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes this year as the quality was just not good enough.

So once again Mother Nature is in control.