Harvest cellar operations are fast coming to a close. This time of year we often say we’re “buttoning up” the wines. For non-ML (malolactic fermentation) white wines, they will have been racked off their heavy lees a while ago and received SO2. They’re now settling out their “light lees” and being given their second SO2 addition. New wines bind just about all of the SO2 you give it with their first addition and many winemakers are caught off guard how fast they have to make a

Soggy is how I and most wine producers in the Mid-Atlantic would characterize the 2018 vintage. Northern Virginia got anywhere from 40-90 inches of rain for the 12 month period October 1, 2017- September 30, 2018. This is anywhere from 125%-175% of normal. It was even wetter in western Maryland. If you consider that the region is normally wet by wine growing standards, then all this extra rain just exacerbates an already difficult growing situation. The impact on vineyards he