cinco niños

After a couple days of non typical rain/gloom for Orinda, the sun was out Saturday (10/4/25) morning for our 2025 harvest. Not sure what the Brix ended up at as when I went to test on Thursday, October. 2, the weather was gray in the morning and I couldn’t get a reading. Hannah happened to be visiting and she and I both tasted the grape seeds for nuttiness, and we both gave our wine maker Bill English the two thumbs up. Craig and I were anxious to harvest as we were both in town and had friends lined up to help, plus we were worried about mold with that rain and gloom.

Thank you to Bill Range, Steve Dathe, Ed and Beth Casey, June Yee who once again filled in for the absentee niños and helped with the harvest. We also welcomed first timers Kristin Rosenbaum, Kyle Chang, Jennie Klein and Brian Moran. Everyone took home a bottle of 2023 Cinco Niños GSM blend as their thank you. Earlier in June we took home 14 cased of the GSM from our 2023 harvest so an almost two year turn around. 

Craig and I are thrilled that Bill continues to sign up as our winemaker. There is a glut of fruit in the market with people advertising prime Napa Valley Cab. S. berries free for the picking. But he is continue to help us out. This year we only harvested around 450 lbs and Bill was very disappointed the Brix at harvest was only 22.2. Lost a lot of fruit on the hill top rows due to critter loss and not sure what else. Will think about separating the top vineyard and Syrah varietal from the lower rows and the Grenache. They just ripen at different times. Bill gave us the heads up for two separate fermentations next year. 

We had a great time pouring our wine at the Sleepy Hollow Neighborhood local wine tasting event held in July. Along with about 7 other wineries, we poured both our 2022 and our 2023 wines and had many happy customers.