Harvest report Grapes ripen in late summer heat

By DAVID STONEBERG
For the Register

With last week’s hot spell, the grapes ripened rapidly and pushed workers from playing a waiting game to one of action — at least in a few areas of the county.

By AVAs (American Viticultural Areas), from north to south, the reports are as follows:

Calistoga AVA

(pending)

Paul Smith, OnThEdge Winery, “Chilly, dew-soaked forklift seats, frosted buns, spilled steaming coffee, scorched thighs, thumping bins, diesel, dust, anxiety and action replace the serenity of last week’s seed-munching sunrise strolls through the vines. Cold buns, hot thighs and Grape Nuts for breakfast — yup harvest! Calistoga’s perfect weather coaxes uniform color and balance from crops estimated by the few growers asked (and every winemaker not) as ‘down 20 to 25 percent.’ ‘Twill be a busy week with zin, merlot, syrah and CF inbound.”

Diamond Mountain District

Dawnine Dyer, Dyer Vineyards, “While most of Diamond Mountain is still in a waiting mode, Graeser Winery will kick off the harvest this week with its earliest blocks and J Schram is estimating that it will start sometime in the second week in September, which is early for us. In general, folks are anticipating lighter crops than normal — a combination of poor weather during bloom that influenced set and overall smaller berries. Water is holding, but a few people report that their wells are refilling slower this year. The spring frost, so devastating to parts of the valley, didn’t spare Diamond Mountain completely and, while minimal, some damage in low spots has been reported across the district.”

Howell Mountain

Pat Stotesbery, Ladera Vineyards, “Other than those areas affected by frost, the crop size is normal or above with small berries and good cluster size. Sauvignon blanc is off at Ladera but no one has yet picked reds. Mark Neal expects to pick eastern slope vineyards next week and he will likely be joined by a few others as we face a solid week of forecasted high temperatures.”

Chiles Valley District

Volker Eisele, Eisele Vineyards, “There is not much new in the district. The weather is erratic as in other parts of the Napa Valley. Sugars for sauvignon blanc are around 22.5 to 23 degrees Brix. Only one small lot has been picked. Semillon hovers between 20 and 21 degrees Brix. The reds look very good but are far from ready.”

Spring Mountain District

Stuart Smith, Smith-Madrone, “The 2008 harvest on Spring Mt. began in August and most of us anticipate harvest to be finished by the end of September. Another unusual harvest you might think. Hardly. The years 1996, 1997 and 2001 are some recent vintages with similar harvest dates. The whites have good - to very good crop levels, yet most of the mountain is expecting only fair crop levels for the reds. Excellent quality is expected by everyone.”

St. Helena

Peter Mondavi, Jr., proprietor, Charles Krug Winery, “The sauvignon blanc harvest in St. Helena started in earnest with vineyards lit up for the typical night harvesting. The yields are up slightly with uniform ripening and expressive citrus, melon and stone fruit flavors and aromas. The severe frosts of spring fortunately left little impression on this variety in the St. Helena AVA.

“With smaller berries, perhaps due to the lack of late spring rains, the reds have broken the 20 Brix hurdle all around, raising concerns over a compressed harvest. We’re now at the mercy of Mother Nature to break this potential log jam. Speaking of Mother Nature, the vines survived our heat spike last week with minimal sunburn and shriveling.”

Rutherford

Jeffrey Stambor, director of winemaking, Beaulieu Vineyards, “High temperatures and drying winds are combining to push the 2008 vintage along at a rapid pace. We are starting to harvest merlot from the appellation and young blocks of cabernet sauvignon are right behind! It’s too early to make any yield predictions but my feeling is that the vintage is light in tonnage and that is also contributing to the earliness of the harvest. The fruit is sound, darkly colored and flavorful … so here’s to an early harvest.”

Stags Leap District

Elizabeth Vianna, winemaker, Chimney Rock Winery, “The games have officially begun. Our recent heat spike has propelled some red fruit into crush pads in the district a little earlier than we thought it would. At Chimney Rock, our hillside merlot (which is a key component in our Elevage blend) is getting very close. Kevin Morrisey tells me he will bring in some merlot later this week and that his crop is ‘small, intense and ripening unusually earlier.’ Michelle Edwards at Cliff Lede is bringing some young vine merlot this week. There’s no rest now until the closing ceremonies and the last grapes are crushed.”

Atlas Peak

Jan Krupp, Stagecoach Vineyards, “Temperatures in the Atlas Peak Appellation have been hot moving the grapes forward both in terms of Brix and berry ripeness. Harvest of chardonnay and zinfandel should begin in 7-10 days. Most of the berries have sized up considerably in the last four weeks. Cabernet sauvignon yields still appear to be 20 to 30 percent below normal. Other varietals especially non-merlot varietals appear to have normal yields. Merlot blocks are quite variable this year running the gamut from light to normal to heavy.”

Mount Veeder

Brian Nuss, Vinoce Vineyards, “Things are looking pretty good up here at the northern end of the appellation. The summer has been up and down weather wise. I think this is one of the best looking crops we have had. The clusters are perfect, tiny berries nice and juicy. The crop does not need much thinning, although we have dropped a few clusters here and there, mostly the merlot. Lagier Meredith say they will be bringing some syrah in 10 to 14 days and their crop is light to moderate. I am estimating harvest starting in two to three weeks for us.”

Oakville

Pat Garvey, vineyard manager, Flora Springs Winery, “We have started harvesting sauvignon blanc in Oakville with our crews moving into pinot grigio later in the week. We are down slightly on our sauvignon blanc estimates and because of the lighter crop, harvesting a week earlier then we anticipated. We’re harvesting at night by hand to keep our crews fresh and away from the heat of the day.”

 

Oak Knoll AVA

Steve Hall, winemaker, Biale Vineyards, “The recent hot weather and cool nights have thickened the grape skins enormously. We have seen deep color extraction. The raising in zinfandel and other red varieties is outpacing the actual ripeness of berries, making this a very difficult year for growers. Quality of the wine should be good to great with patient picking.”

Carneros

Lee Hudson, Hudson Vineyards, “Oh What a few days can do … with the warm weather we’ve seen the quickening of maturation. Lots of the sparkling harvest was completed as we readied yourselves for a busy Labor Day. The still wine harvest in Carneros started in earnest earlier this week. Soon, we’ll start to really know what the year has given us. Onward and upward …”

Wild Horse Valley

John Newmeyer, Heron Lake Vineyard, “One of the two large vineyards in our little valley suffered a total crop loss from April’s frost. The other large vineyard was unaffected; its pinot noir crop is now at 22 Brix, and the chardonnay is not far behind. The vintage will be bigger than last year’s, but not as big as the 2006 crop.”

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