Fall 1999

Dear Friends,

As we finalize this Newsletter, the harvest is nearly complete, and we think it will be a marvelous vintage. You may have heard by now that 1998 was a rather late year—later in fact than any year since at least 1982. We picked most of our fruit in the last week of October and some of the fruit in our vineyards hung on the vines until the second week of November. We were able to make some good wines in 1998, but in smaller quantities that we are accustomed to. Many of our friends and colleagues believed this might be a later harvest than 1998, but the Gods smiled, and from budbreak to bloom to veraison most of our vineyards were at least two weeks ahead of last year.

One aspect that is interesting about this year’s harvest, is that the fruit is maturing at somewhat lower sugar levels. That is, the berries are beginning to soften, the stems are lignifying, the seeds turning hard and brown, the skins are releasing their color into the juice, the acids are dropping, and the vegetal aromas are disappearing – all at lower sugar levels than in many years. The result promises to be a smooth, well-balanced, gentle wine—just the kind of wines we like.

As many of you know, phylloxera has caused us to institute a planned re-planting program which was an enormous undertaking—it could continue to impact our production beyond 2005. The direct impact of our newly planted vines will not be seen in the Cain Five before the 2002 vintage, which we won’t be selling before 2006—when we say that Cain is a long term project, we mean it.

Of course, successful farming, means responding to changes to improve and increase production, so we are always coming up with improvements for erosion control, irrigation, farmability, trellising, rootstocks and clones. Benjamin Falk, our Vineyard Manager, has been leading an absolutely first-class vineyard team ably assisted by Hector Solorio, our long-time Vineyard Foreman.

During this 1999 harvest we have been fortunate to have three winemaking trainees (like apprentice winemakers) who came from Europe just to work with us during the crush. Thus we had a lot of pent-up energy to help manage this year’s marvelously soft and “cushy” king of ripe fruit that should yield sumptuous wines. If you have visited Cain in the last few years, you wouldn’t find much change in our cellar unless you look closely. We’ve always tried to keep it clear, well organized and ready for work. Those who know the place, will say that it’s never looked clearer. This reflects on our team headed up by Francois Bugue, our Production Manager/Cellar master. Our winemaking staff has never been stronger or had more fun.

Christopher Howell
Winemaker/General Manager