The cool spring this year meant that Andrew Moon, our viticulturist, and Sandra Oldfield, our winemaker, had to carefully monitor the vineyard to ensure that the grapes would reach full ripeness. The cool spring 
and slightly later start to the summer weather pushed the start date of harvest back almost 2 weeks. We started our harvest on September 28 with Pinot Gris from our Diamondback Vineyard on the Black Sage Bench. In a perfect year once harvest starts it is fairly constant with maybe a day or two here and there that we do not pick. This year there were three or four days in between picking days which really seemed to make harvest drag out, but also made for a much more relaxed harvest... until the end of October. Around October 26 the temperatures took a nose dive and the vineyard and cellar teams had some very long days as they worked constantly to bring in most of our reds. Luckily for us by this time the reds were ripe enough to harvest thanks to Andrew's management of the vineyard prior to harvest.
We did have one block of Cabernet Franc that Andrew and Sandra felt was not going to reach full ripeness (as the rest of the Cabernet Franc blocks would), but it would perfect for a rose. After some deliberation and monitoring, to see if it would ripen further, the decision was then made to harvest that one block of Cabernet Franc specifically for a rose. In total we will have just under 1400 cases of 2011 Oldfield Series Rose and it will only be available at the winery and Miradoro Restaurant. To forewarn you though... For the 2012 vintage the rose will go back to being a very limited production (200-300 cases) and will only be available to our Crush Club members and at Miradoro Restaurant.
