2017 was a year that will be forever imprinted into our lives in Sonoma County. The catastrophic fires that hit us in early October impacted everyone in our county, and we are so very thankful for the work that our first-responders and volunteers did to help and support our community at this horrific time. We were fortunate that all of our fruit was already picked prior to the fires commencing. As for the growing season, 2017 was an exciting vintage that threw a lot of curve balls. We ended up having record rainfalls during the 2016/2017 winter season where our rivers flowed heavily and refilled the dams after years of drought conditions. This welcome turn allowed the soils to be thoroughly saturated and gave us a wonderful jumping off point. Temperatures during fruit set were on the cooler side and they occurred more into a "normal" time of year (as opposed to previous years of very early beginning of ripening). At the end of August into early September, we received a handful of 100+ degree days that required some patience and hand-wringing but ultimately we were happy with the decision to hold tight, give the fruit some water and let them recover and continue to ripen on the vine.