You Never Forget Your First (Harvest) - Centralas Wine Harvest 2019

Our first commercial harvest at Centralas is mostly behind us. The organic Pinot Noir grapes have been picked, de-stemmed, native fermented, pressed, and put into 20% new French Oak barrels. The biodynamic Grenache and Syrah have been picked, crushed, and co-native-fermented in barrels, of which 20% is new American Oak.

Now comes the long winter of waiting. My style of waiting is eager and impatient, especially when it comes to wine.

We couldn't be happier with the way our first harvest has gone. The aromas and tastes of the two very young wines are outstanding, and they promise to improve with barrel age.

We even got exactly the color we wanted in the biodynamic rosé - a bright, bubble-gum pink just shy of hot pink. But there's nothing shy about this biodynamic rosé.

The young biodynamic rosé has effusive, tropical aromas of guava, pineapples, and bananas, as well as pear, pink grapefruit, nectarines, and apples. In the American oak barrel, these aroma flavors are beginning to intermingle with sweet coconut and vanilla, with maybe a dash of nutmeg.

This barrel-aged biodynamic rosé is already unlike any rosé that we have experienced before... which is exactly what we were hoping for it: uniqueness.

If the biodynamic rosé is the social butterfly, the organic single-clone Pinot Noir at the moment is that one mysterious person at the party who you don't notice at first. They are standing alone, and aloof, at the back of the crowd. But once you find them you can't un-see them. They didn't dress to get attention, but on closer inspection you can see they have mad style, and expensive taste. And when they make eye-contact with you, from behind their screen of bangs, it's mesmerizing. You know they have stories to tell, and secrets, and you suddenly want to leave the party and go somewhere quiet with them.

The organic single-clone Pinot Noir smells and tastes like a deep, mysterious well of fascinating stories and hinted secrets. The texture is already incredibly stylish for such a young wine. There are dark fruits and exotic spices that evoke markets in a fantasy netherworld where produce is grown by absorbing darkness rather than light. It doesn't seem to be from this planet.

We couldn't be more excited to see what secrets this organic single-clone Pinot Noir will reveal, or acquire, as it matures in oak.

The most exciting thing about Centralas's first harvest is that it not only lived up to our expectations and hopes, it exceeded them.

It was the most fun we've had in a long time.

We hope you enjoy the video mash-up of the two harvests. We combined both the organic single-clone Pinot Noir harvest with the biodynamic barrel-aged rosé harvest, to give you a beginning to end sense of the entire process.