Late rains, cool temperatures with fog, and no late season heat combined to make this a most challenging year. We really noticed this in our Oak Knoll vineyards, a cool climate area of Napa even in normal years. Though these vineyards did ripen up nicely, with final Brix in the high 25s and mid 26s, we did a 10% bleed on the Merlot to make sure we had some good intensity. The mountain vineyards came in on Halloween with rain just starting to fall.