Why our glorious February weather is making us nervous

The past week has seen some of the nicest winter weather imaginable. Days in the 70s. Nights dropping into the 30s but warming up quickly. Ample sun. Combine that with the lovely rain we've received since the beginning of February (8+ inches in all) and it's no wonder it's incredibly green. You can see the results in a video that Ian filmed and edited showing our water catchment basins at work. As impressive to me is how lush the cover crop looks as the drone pans over the vineyard:

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While it's routinely sunny in Paso Robles in the winter, at least between rainstorms, the warmth that we saw last week and which is forecast to intensify this week is less common. January was typical for our dry winter months, with an average high of 64°F, an average low of 31.7°F, and 18 frost nights. The first half of February was typical of our wet winter months, with an average high of 57.4°F, an average low of 37.6°F, and only 3 frost nights. But since February 15th, we've seen just one more frost night despite that the skies have been clear. Over that period, our average high has soared to 69.4°F and our average low has only been 36°F. The last two days have topped out at 76°F and 77°F, and I was walking around the vineyard in a t-shirt. It might hit 80°F on Wednesday. A few photos will give you a sense of what it looks like now, starting with wildflowers blooming in the lush cover crop:

A look through our oldest Grenache block shows the appealing contours of the old vines set off against the deep green of the grass:

One result of this combination of rain and sun is that suddenly we have an ample supply of forage for our flock of sheep. They are looking fat and happy. And check out that sky:

What's the down side of this glorious weather? Well, too much more warmth and we could be looking at budbreak in early March. One of the principal stimuli that plants are waiting for to initiate budbreak is rising soil temperatures. We're mitigated from very rapid soil temperature rise because of the recent rain, as wet soils hold cool temperatures longer than dry soils do. But too many warm, sunny days and not enough chilly nights, and the grapevines are going to react.

Whenever it comes, budbreak begins our worries about frosts, which can come as late as early May. While a month or so of frost worries is normal, an early budbreak can double the duration where the vines are at risk. In the winter, when the vines are dormant, a frost isn't a problem and in fact is typically beneficial, as it forces the sap down into the roots and gives the vines more vigor when they sprout in the spring. But once new growth emerges from the buds, it can be damaged by below-freezing nights, as I wrote about in 2022. A bad frost can cost us as much as 40% of our production, which we saw in 2001, 2009, and most recently 2011. Even a localized frost can have a disproportionate impact on individual grape varieties. The one we saw in May of 2022 hit hardest a block that includes our largest block of Roussanne and additional acreage of Grenache Blanc, Picpoul, and Vermentino. The result was a dramatically reduced crop of whites, and a blending session where we ended up unable to make staples like Cotes de Tablas Blanc, Roussanne, and Picpoul. In any case, I'm not anxious to repeat the experience.

Beyond the potential negative impact of frost damage, we need to complete our pruning before the vines sprout. We're about 70% done, but were hoping for another month where we could slowly work our way through the vineyard. As it is, we're likely to have to bring in extra crew to make sure we finish on time. We're finishing up our trellised blocks (like the Syrah you see below, with the newly pruned canes piled up between the rows) and getting started on our head-trained sections.

As to why we're thinking we might see early budbreak, there are signs, if you know where to look. One of them is the sap flow into the grapevines that are newly pruned. As the vines start to awaken from their winter slumber, sap flow increases. When you make a cut (typically to prune) you see that sap welling out for a few days before the cut hardens over, as in this photo captured by Director of Winemaking Neil Collins:

And, of course, grapevines aren't the only plants waking up for spring. On my drive out today I snapped this photo of an almond orchard in full bloom:

Thankfully, it seems like this unusually warm, dry weather is only going to stick around through the end of the week. By next week, we should see a wetter, cooler weather pattern resume, according to the National Weather Service:

I asked Austin Collins what his predication was for when we'd see budbreak and he guessed roughly two weeks. That wouldn't make it our earliest-ever (that honor goes to 2016, when January and February were both dry and warm) but it would still be on the early side with years like 2014, 2015, and 2022. Whenever we do see budbreak, we'll start on our frost protection program, deploying our fans and our micro-sprinklers where we can. We can't do much about the date of budbreak, but we do have some ability to limit the damage on frosty nights. We'll have a month at least when we'll have to be on watch. I'm just hoping it's not two months.

Meanwhile, if you need us, we'll be out here, enjoying the spring-like weather and the warmer evenings. Spring is a beautiful and hopeful time, even if it is sometimes scary.

Experimenting with Tradition: Vine Training

By Austin Collins

There is no doubt that most everything we do in the vineyard has been done before. The invention and implementation of new technology, equipment, and products (fungicides, etc.) bring some novelty to viticulture, but the methods used on the ground and in the vines are age-old. The pruning and training of vines is no exception to this. Due to the varying climates, varietals, and traditions, each region throughout the world has its preferred method of training vines. The most common pruning styles we see here in Paso are: spurred cordon, guyot (cane pruning), and goblet (head-trained). These are of course the most customary methods globally. In Burgundy and Bordeaux, the guyot is most frequently used. Chateauneuf du Pape allows three styles, with the goblet being its most famed. The deeper you dive, the more methods you will find—the Taille Chablis in Champagne, the Echalat in Condrieu, or the elusive Palmette in Provence.

Each pruning method is tailored to the region, some even having rules for what is allowed. Here, we are free to go off the book and find unique ways to prune that suit our needs, but doing so in a conservative manner as to protect our end goal. That being said a majority of our vines fall in these main categories. The most common you will see here is the double-cordon:

This vine was one of the first Grenache vines to be planted on the property in 1992, even before the Beaucastel cuttings were approved to be planted. One of the few blocks planted to non Beaucastel clones.

We use the spurred double cordon for its production efficiency and ease of management. This trellising system turns a three-dimensional plant into something more two-dimensional, allowing for the freer flow of air through the vine and the exposure of both sides of the vine to the sun’s light. These factors reduce mildew pressures, allow even ripening, and make it easy to see the crop at a glance. For this reason, it is our most widely used training method. Once the plant has gained enough strength after a few years in the ground, you can begin to "train" it down onto the wire. This wood will serve as the structural and vascular system, supplying each spur with everything it needs to support each year’s growth. As you can see, we average three to four spurs on either side and strive to allow them to grow slowly upward with time. As the canopy grows, it is kept in place with the catch wires above. Now, this is the ideal specimen, and no vine looks the same. Part of the beautiful divergency of nature.

We do employ another common method that utilizes the VSP system: the Guyot or cane-pruned method. Like the spurred cordon, this can be done as a single side or double. This is one example of the double guyot on a hilltop Syrah vine.

We lay down one-year old growth with about 15 buds on each side along with one to two "renewal" spurs for next year’s cane. Ideally the renewal is positioned on the main branch below the cane being laid down. This is both for the production of the "branch" and balancing the growth of the vine, each year only laying down one-year-old wood. We use the Guyot method on Syrah and Viognier due to their growing habits of producing long and plentiful vegetative growth and the fact that their most productive buds are at the end of the previous year’s canes.
Around 40% of our vineyard is pruned in a head-trained manner. In these blocks, we are farming without irrigation (also known as dry farming) and do so in a style much like that of walnut growers in the area. You might be expecting that we use the conventional “gobelet” style popular in Chateauneuf du Pape but we’ve realized that our conditions are better suited for a modified head-trained style more like a vertical cordon, also known as the Lodi Ladder to some in the Central Valley. A traditional gobelet pruning cuts a vine back to 6 or 8 arms that reach up from a central trunk and are cut back relatively close to the ground. That’s great in a place like Chateauneuf where you’re trying to make use of the radiant heat absorbed by the rocks during the day to allow more ripening in their more northerly latitude, and when you can plant dry-farmed vines closer together because you get rain year-round.

In Paso Robles, we get plenty of heat, so getting the ripening fruit further from the ground is preferable, and our rain is so concentrated during the winter months that having fewer, more robust vines is better than having more but smaller vines. So we plant our vines farther apart to limit competition and train them up higher, producing more spur positions and more production per vine. This creates a stronger vine that is less susceptible to disease, therefore allowing it to live longer. Hence the fact that the oldest vineyards in the world are head trained! Here is a look at a Grenache vine in our westernmost block Crosshairs:

These vines are trained to stakes that are around five feet tall. Ideally, they are trained up vertically year by year creating spur positions (branches) along the way. We try not to push them too hard, especially when they are young, but once mature, they average between 9-12 spurs per vine. This method suits our farming practices and keeps the vines out of the way of the tractor, not growing too far into the space between vines. It also allows the vine to grow more naturally and less restrictedly, allowing it to grow where it wants to. We have actually converted vines from the traditional goblet method to a vertical cordon in an effort to grow out and above the frost zone. Here is a look at the hybridized style in a Tannat vine:

As you can see on the bottom half of the vine, there are a handful of spurs all around the trunk that are a similar height off the ground. This was the old structure. We were getting hit with frost more often than we liked, so we decided to try and raise the vine out of the low-lying area. We still experience frost damage from time to time on the lower branches, but the growth on top tends to remain untouched.

There are many ways to prune a vine (you can use that instead of the old "to skin a cat"), and it depends on where you are and what you are trying to accomplish. We will continue experimenting and mixing different methods when the opportunity presents itself. I believe it is good to question everything, especially when we are too comfortable with it, it may lead somewhere better, it may not. But continuing to wonder is part of the progression and fun of what we do. I will leave you with a photo of a TRIAL of a hybrid between a single cordon and single guyot, we will see how it goes!

Putting the cool, dry start to the 2024-25 winter in context

With the terrible fires in Los Angeles still top of mind around the country, I'm guessing that most of you won't be surprised to hear we've had a dry start to our winter here in Paso Robles too. You might be surprised, though, to hear that Northern California regions like Napa and Sonoma are well above their normal rainfall to date. This is as a result of several atmospheric river storms that hit the Bay Area and north starting in late November, while leaving the Central Coast mostly dry and Southern California entirely so. My favorite California weather expert Daniel Swain explained in a post on Bluesky just before the fires broke out:

A major offshore wind & fire weather event will develop this week across much of Southern California. Essentially no rain has fallen so far this season in SoCal, and a high-end "atmospheric blowdryer" wind event will greatly increase wildfire risk by Tue/Wed. #CAwx #CAfire [1/3]

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— Daniel Swain (@weatherwest.bsky.social) January 4, 2025 at 3:48 PM

The net result of this wet-in-the-north, dry-in-the-south pattern has been that we're only at about 35% of normal rainfall. But if you drive around town -- or around our vineyard -- it doesn't feel like we're particularly dry. The rain came at the ideal moment, just after we got our cover crop in the ground, and an unusually sunny and warm December meant that the seeds sprouted and grew rapidly. In fact, it's greener here now than it was in mid-January 2023 and 2024, both winters where we got above-average rainfall. This photo of the Mourvedre block behind the winery that I took this morning will give you a sense:

While December was comparatively mild (average high 66°F, average low 38°F, and only two frost nights), since the calendar flipped to January our nights have gotten colder. In the first 19 days of the month we've had the same average high of 66°F but have seen an average low of 32°F and racked up 10 frost nights. Before you worry, winter frosts here aren't unusual. We typically get 30-40 nights a year that drop below freezing, and grapevines benefit from being forced into dormancy.

But it is unusual to see so many frost nights in a single month, and even more unusual for so many of those days to be warm. Last Wednesday, we had a day that dropped down to 28°F and then rose to 71°F that afternoon. That's a 43°F swing! We'd expect a diurnal temperature variation like that in November, before it has rained and when our humidity is typically at its annual low. But not usually in January, and not usually when you have all that green growth and the moisture it both necessitates and retains. The result has been frosty mornings and then afternoons with deep blue skies and not a cloud to be found. We've been taking advantage of this weather to get ahead on our pruning. One of our goals this winter was to prune our entire vineyard with our full-time team and not need to bring in any supplemental crew. So far, we're ahead of pace and roughly halfway done. You can see the progress and the crazy blue of the skies in the two photos below. On the left is an unpruned Grenache vine. On the right are two newly pruned Mourvedre vines:

The early rain and the sunny weather has also been great for our flock of sheep. There has been plenty for them to eat and we've been able to keep them in the vineyard instead of having to pull them out because we were worried about soil compaction:

The sheep are shedding, leaving wool on the vines as they rub against them while passing through the block. Each spring, we find birds' nests made from this wool. Sounds cozy!

The impact on the vineyard is likely to depend on what we see in coming weeks and months. Typically at this point we'd expect to have accumulated 11.45" of rain, or about 45% of what we'd expect in a normal winter. Looking at it another way, we're about 8" of rain behind what we'd expect to have at this moment, with about 14" more of rain expected between now and the end of the winter.

Winter rainfall typically has three critical impacts on our operations:

• First, to sprout and sustain the cover crop, allowing us to build organic matter in our topsoil and create a healthy network of microbial and fungal activity.
• Second, to saturate the deeper soil layers, from which our grapevine roots will draw water later in the growing season when the topsoil has dried out.
• Third, to replenish the wells and aquifers.

Looking need by need, we're fine on the first concern. The rain we've gotten so far was timed perfectly from a cover crop and topsoil standpoint, and because of the sun, we're seeing plenty of growth. The second concern is the most pressing. While the top few feet of soil has benefited from our rain, deeper layers are still dry. As for the third concern, our aquifers and wells, you might think that this would be our biggest worry, but it's not. Our wells are in good shape thanks to the last two wet winters. That said, they haven't yet benefited from this year's rain. Las Tablas Creek has not yet flowed. And the aquifers will be important to 2026 and beyond.

Happily, for the first time in nearly a month, the forecast is calling for some wet weather, with a storm system are forecast to impact the Central Coast toward the end of this week. The other weather expert I consider a must-follow for the Central Coast is John Lindsey, and he shared a hopeful post a few days ago that is now starting to show up in mainstream weather forecasts:

The weather models have occasionally suggested cutoff lows bringing rain to the Central Coast since late December, only for those predictions to be removed in subsequent model updates. The current 18Z projection features a 996-millibar parent low-pressure system off the Oregon… pic.twitter.com/vgvBODEbSk

— John Lindsey (@PGE_John) January 16, 2025

We hope he's right. Meanwhile, we'll be enjoying the winter beauty, both the chilly mornings and the sunny afternoons. Fingers crossed, please, everyone.

November is the month for epic vineyard photos

Something about November just hits different. Maybe it's the lower sun angles. Maybe it's the clouds. Maybe it's the fall colors. Or maybe it's that daylight savings has ended, so I'm here at the vineyard as the sun sets each day. Whatever the reason, it's a month where I find myself grabbing my camera and walking west to chase the setting sun more often than any other. I wanted to share some of my favorite photos I've gotten recently, starting with the vineyard road I usually follow out into the middle of the vineyard:

The grapevines are starting to lose their leaves, especially in low-lying areas where we've gotten a few hard freezes recently, which makes for a nice contract with the olive trees. We've been harvesting olives this week, and are seeing a bumper crop:

The blocks that do still have leaves are typically on hillsides, where the cold air can drain away. Syrah is particularly pretty at this time of year, reminding me of maple leaves from Vermont where I grew up:

Other blocks can feel downright wintery already. This Mourvedre block has already lost most of its leaves, with the exception of a few tufts of green leaf growth on the canes' tips:

The grapevines aren't the only things losing their leaves. This peach tree seems to lose all its leaves almost at once, each year:

There's a view I come back to, season after season, because I love the depth that it shows, with lines of hills receding west toward the horizon. These are Counoise vines in the front, with Syrah behind:

The live oaks don't lose their leaves, so they stand out dark against the fading light: 

I'll leave you with one more photo, a classic sunset shot, with cotton candy clouds over Grenache vines. We spend so much of the year without clouds that when they do return it's always striking:

Speaking of clouds, it's looking like we're going to get our first real rain of the year at the end of the week. Although we won't see the potentially historic results that are being predicted for the coast between the Bay Area and Portland, Oregon, it looks like we'll get an inch or so of rain. And honestly, that's perfect. It's supposed to stay unsettled after, and getting an inch of water in the ground should allow our cover crop to germinate. Getting six inches might have meant it would wash away:

Remarkable view of #BombCyclone west of Oregon & Washington and associated #AtmosphericRiver west of California this PM. Fortunately, the strongest winds will remain well offshore, but very heavy rainfall is likely across portions of northern CA into weekend. #CAwx #ORwx #WAwx

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— Daniel Swain (@weatherwest.bsky.social) November 19, 2024 at 3:46 PM

Between several frosty mornings this week and the wind and rain from the storm coming on Friday, these views will likely look dramatically different by next week. And that's fine. Autumn has been lovely. Bring on winter.

Harvest 2024 Recap: Warm Temperatures Push the Pace and Give Us an End-of-Vintage Surprise

Yesterday, with a few surprise bins of Tannat (more on that later) we completed the 2024 harvest. This was two weeks later than the first time we finished harvest, but still two weeks earlier than last year. And that's a theme for 2024: it's a lot like 2022... except when it throws a 2023-like curveball at us. But no matter when it happens, being done is a cause for celebration. 

There will be lots to remember from 2024, from us getting exciting and much-more-substantial picks off of our head-trained, dry-farmed Jewel Ridge plantings to the chance to break in new concrete fermenters in the cellar to our largest-ever (though still small) harvest of the 14th and final Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape grape to make it to us, Muscardin:

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start out back in the spring, where 2024 started out reminding us of 2023. At the end of May, it was just a touch warmer than 2023, and well behind what we saw in 2022. Then, after a more-or-less average June, we saw a much warmer weather pattern set in. July shattered records as the warmest month by far ever seen in California. Paso Robles was no exception. We saw 14 days over 100°F and an average high temperature of 98.5°F. And not only were the hot days hot, we never got much of a break, as just four days failed to reach the 90s. August was nearly as hot (average high temperature: 94.5°F) though we did get a little break the third week of the month. Even September (average high: 90.6°F) was as hot as many of our midsummer months have been in the past, while October began with a seven-day heat wave that saw average highs of 105°F. If that sounds unrelenting, it was. The period between July 1st and October 11th (when we finished harvest for the first time) saw average high temperatures 4.3°F higher than our long-term averages, and average low temperatures 3.4°F higher than our long-term averages. In this chart below you can see the cumulative degree day measurements for our last 10 vintages at Tablas Creek. 2024 is the dashed orange line. You can see at the end of June we were still below our long-term average. The 2024 line crosses the average in July and then accumulates heat steadily until October, when it makes another turn upward to become one of our hottest years on record (though still behind 2022):

Another way of looking at the year is going month by month compared to normal. We started the year with two months that were cooler than average and since then have had five consecutive months between 2% and 30% warmer than our averages. And remember, these are already warm months:

As you might suspect, the pace of harvest was driven by our hot weeks in early September and early October. In their aftermath, fruit came tumbling in. But because even in the interludes it was still at least warm, we see something close to a bell curve in the distribution of harvest by week. In the chart below, blue is purchased fruit for the Patelin or Lignée programs, and orange estate-grown fruit:

You may have noticed the outlier in late October, which I hinted at in my opening paragraph. That surprise consisted of four more tons of Mourvedre, Grenache, Counoise and Tannat from an unusually plentiful set of "second crop" clusters. ⁠A second crop sets in maybe a month after initial flowering in the spring. Evolutionarily, these additional berries offer vines a chance to reproduce if the primary crop gets eaten or otherwise destroyed. But for a grapegrower, it's usually not worth going back and picking these clusters, which have less sugar and are typically smaller in size. But this year was different for us because in this relatively early harvest we had plenty of good ripening weather at the end. So clusters that in a later year, or one with an earlier onset of wet weather, wouldn't have gotten ripe, got the extra hang-time they needed to get into our sweet spot.⁠
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We had extra incentive to go pick this fruit because it became clear during harvest that despite our wet 2023-24 winter we were seeing lower-than-normal yields. So we decided to let the second crop hang (instead of dropping it) in case we got lucky with late-harvest-season weather. And we did!⁠ Finally, second crop clusters are generally more prevalent in blocks with higher vigor. For us, that comes from head-trained, wide-spaced blocks with extra long cane growth. Tannat produces a decent quantity of second-crop clusters every year. This year, we noticed that the young, vigorous Mourvedre, Grenache, and Counoise vines on Jewel Ridge also had enough second crop clusters to be worth revisiting. We're happy we did!⁠ The lots that we got off Jewel Ridge seem like they're sure to be some of the highlights of the year.

⁠Even with that end-of-harvest windfall, yields were down 12.7% overall off the estate vs. 2023, which is a bit disappointing given that we had our second consecutive rainy winter and dodged frosts. We also have 15 additional acres in production, which means that our yields per acre declined to 2.35 tons/acre. There are really only two other years that produced yields around 2.5 tons per acre, and they both turned out to be terrific: 2021 and 2011. So that bodes well. Diving in detail, about half of the decline from 2023 were in two grapes (Bourboulenc and Grenache Noir) that we felt that we left a bit too much crop on last year, and on which we cut back intentionally. The other half came from smaller declines from a range of grapes:

Grape	2024 Yields (tons)	2023 Yields (tons)	% Change vs. 2023
Viognier	7.9	10.1	-21.8%
Marsanne	7.9	9.0	-12.2%
Grenache Blanc	24.7	29.3	-15.7%
Picpoul Blanc	6.3	7.2	-12.6%
Vermentino	14.4	13.0	+10.8%
Bourboulenc	4.5	7.2	-37.5%
Roussanne	23.7	26.2	-9.5%
Other whites	4.4	3.2	+37.5%
Total Whites	93.8	105.2	-10.8%
Grenache	76.5	97.1	-21.2%
Syrah	47.6	41.7	+14.1%
Mourvedre	37.8	47.4	-20.3%
Tannat	14.4	15.3	-5.9%
Counoise	14.8	22.4	-33.9%
Cinsaut	3.6	3.6	+0%
Other reds	8.1	7.1	+14.1%
Total Reds	202.8	234.6	-13.6%
Total	296.6	339.8	-12.7%

2.35 tons/acre is low for us in a non-frost vintage, about 20% below our 20-year average of 3.08 tons/acre. Some of that is attributable to the higher percentage of wide-spaced, dry-farmed vineyard acres that we have in production now compared to our first couple of decades, but it's also clear to me that yields did suffer in the heat this summer. Most concerning to me are three late-ripening, low-vigor grapes: Mourvedre, Counoise, and Roussanne, that were down an aggregate 20.5% vs. 2023 despite significant new acreage coming on line from Jewel Ridge. Neil, Jordy, and I have already started talking through what we're planning to do to help rejuvenate our older blocks.

We had 131 harvest lots, an increase of two vs. 2023. These included six fewer estate lots (88 instead of 94), three more Lignée lots (7 instead of 4) and five more Patelin lots (36 vs. 31). Despite the higher number of lots, the total quantity of fruit (535.5 tons) was actually about 18% less than last year. This was mostly driven by some of our standby Patelin vineyards, particularly the ones that we rely on for whites, coming in lower in yields than we expected. In response, we reached deeper into our network than we have in years, and have a lot of little Patelin lots. Our label designers will have to get creative next year to fit all the Patelin vineyards on the back label! In the photo below of our harvest chalkboard, estate lots are in white, while purchased lots are yellow. Each line represents one pick. And yes, we finished the year using every single line on the chalkboard, a testament to Chelsea's divination skills:

The duration of harvest was 59 days, just above our 20-year average of eight weeks. But that's deceptive. If you look at the initial conclusion to harvest on October 11th rather than the day that we finished harvesting our second-crop clusters, it was only 46 days, or six and a half weeks. That would have joined 2019 and 2020 as our shortest harvest seasons of the last two decades, and is probably a better way of thinking of the pace of this year.

One other way that you can get a quick assessment of a vintage is to look at average sugars and acids. Since 2010, our average degrees Brix and pH at harvest:

Year	Avg. Sugars	Avg. pH
2010	22.68	3.51
2011	22.39	3.50
2012	22.83	3.65
2013	22.90	3.63
2014	23.18	3.59
2015	22.60	3.59
2016	22.04	3.71
2017	22.87	3.74
2018	22.80	3.62
2019	22.30	3.62
2020	22.14	3.62
2021	22.12	3.55
2022	22.14	3.70
2023	22.77	3.51
2024	22.25	3.69

Unlike the outlier that was 2023, you don't have to go very far back to see a year with numbers like 2024. 2022 offers very similar numbers, as do years like 2020 and 2016, all hot years where the heat sustained itself through harvest. That suggests that it was the hot second half of the year rather than the cool first half of the year that was more important to the vines' output.

Of course, just because we've finished picking doesn't mean that we're done with our cellar work. There are still plenty of lots to be pressed off, tanks to be dug out, and fermentations to monitor. But it feels different than it does earlier in harvest, when you're emptying tanks to make room for the next pick. We've already put a couple of our open-top fermenters outside, along with our sorting table and destemmer. And now, when we press something off and clean a tank out -- like this concrete fermenter, one of two that we bought and used this harvest for the first time -- that's the last time of the season: 

In character, it's early to tell what things will be like, but I asked Director of Winemaking Neil Collins to sum up the vintage, and he was optimistic: "good maturity, great acidity, whites are showing great floral character and good depth, unfortunately it's a bit short, but it will be an interesting vintage, interesting in a good way. Textural with good intensity on the reds. I think it will be strong, a lot of good color and good intensity for sure. I think it will be a fun one." We're all looking forward to getting to know the wines of 2024 even better in coming weeks.

With the harvest in, we've turned to getting the vineyard prepped for winter. We've been spreading compost and seeding cover crop in our dry-farmed blocks:

At the same time, we've been getting our flock of sheep back into our no-till blocks, where they can eat second-crop clusters and start the process of spreading the nutrients and microbial activity in their manure. Lambs should be on the way in the next few weeks:

It's always an adjustment coming down from the intensity and pace of harvest. But this autumn season offers its own rewards. We'll settle back into the rhythms of the vineyard and help it make the most of the rain when it comes. It's ready for a rest, as are we. But we'll be able to rest better knowing that the 2024 vintage is in the cellar, and as far as we can tell so far, looking good.

Harvest 2024 ramps to full speed, then cools down. Our vines (and our people) appreciate the respite.

On Monday night, I was snuggling under a blanket reading in our living room when I realized that it smelled like snow. No, it was never actually going to snow. Snow happens only once every few years in Paso Robles, and never in September. But that didn't change the fact that after a two month stretch that has ranged from warm to hot, the air felt different. It was already down in the 40s just after 10pm, and the crisp, electric air and the north wind would have sent me, if it were April, to check on our frost protection. In the end, it didn't come all that close to freezing. At my house it bottomed out at 38.7F, and at the vineyard it was a couple of degrees warmer. But that night, and the chilly, breezy day that followed and topped out only at 67.4F, definitely felt like a harbinger of the changing seasons. You can see from the chart below how different the last week has been compared to the beginning of September: 

As for the Tablas Creek harvest, this cooldown is giving the team a chance to catch their breaths after a rapid escalation of harvest. The first couple of weeks started slow, as we brought in 44.8 tons across those two weeks. The next week was a doozy. We brought in over 115 tons including one lot each of Viognier, Marsanne, Roussanne, Clairette Blanche, Grenache Blanc, and Vermentino, four lots of Grenache Blanc, seven lots of Grenache, ten lots of Syrah, and two co-harvested lots. Nineteen of these lots came off the estate, nine will go into Patelin, Patelin Blanc or Patelin Rosé, and one will become our newest Lignée de Tablas wine: a white blend from the Fenaughty vineyard in the Sierra foothills. The harvest chalkboard is filling up:

A few scenes from around the cellar will help give you a sense of things. First, the bins sitting on our crushpad, in this case Mourvedre (left) and Grenache (right):

Next, the daily chart that keeps track of our cap management for all our fermenting reds (notice the division into "pump over", "pulse air", and "punch down") as well as what's being received and pressed that day:

I'm guessing you're likely less familiar with what "pulse air" is than you are with pump over or punch down. For us, it's an important part of our program, and a way to keep the fermenting reds mixed without extracting harsher tannins. You need to do this mixing daily, at least, because the carbon dioxide bubbles that form during fermentation lift the berries to the surface, forming a "cap" or cake of mostly-whole berries at the top of a deeper pool of fermenting juice. You want the juice in contact with the berries because that's how you get the flavor extraction. In addition, leaving the berries to dry out at the surface invites problems such as spoilage yeasts. So typically you either push the berries down into the juice manually (that's a punch-down) or you pump the juice out from the bottom of the tank and spray it on the cap (that's a pump-over). But both have the potential to extract more of the harsher tannins than you might want: punch-downs because you're physically crushing the skins with each punch, and pump-overs because the pump's machinery ends up grinding up seeds that may have fallen to the bottom of the tank. The pulse-air, on the other hand, uses an air compressor and a long wand to release bubbles of air in the fermenting liquid. As that bubble escapes to the surface, it splashes apart the cap. This typically results in a gentler extraction. You can see the pulse-air in action below on one of our 1500-gallon wooden upright tanks, wielded by harvest intern Rachel:

In the vineyard, things have progressed rapidly, and everywhere you turn there is a jewel-like cluster of grapes, hanging enticingly. I particularly like the white clusters at this stage, as they pick up their first hint of honeyed tones. These Bourboulenc clusters should come in sometime in the next week or two:

At the same time, there are still clusters that are a long way from being ready to harvest. And that's just fine; we don't expect to bring in the last fruit until the end of October. This Grenache cluster is still going through the final stages of veraison:

I've been enjoying trying to come up with new perspectives on the ever-changing vineyard. One of my favorites has been to get underneath the vines and use a wide-angle to try to get the hanging clusters, the canopy, and the horizon line. Below you can see the results with Grenache (left) and Bourboulenc (right):

This week's cool-down hasn't meant that we've stopped harvesting. If you look at the harvest chalkboard above you'll see that we brought in nine different lots already this week. But it does take the pressure off. We were able to take yesterday and get our presses a much-needed servicing. We used some down time on Tuesday to get our recently-arrive 600-gallon foudres stacked and settled in our white room. We didn't harvest either weekend day last weekend. And we've been able to get the cellar team home by 4pm the past few days. That may not seem like much, but a week like last week meant 60 work hours for much of the team. Having a mellower week to recharge everyone's batteries is most welcome. 

Similarly, the cooler weather gives the grapevines a chance to recuperate and gather energy for their next push. The weather looks like it will warm up next week, not to any noteworthy level, but back into the 90s. Then things will get back on track.

One thing I'm going to be keeping my eyes on is yields. We're starting to get signals, mostly from our Patelin growers, that certain varieties are coming in much lighter than people expected. This seems to be particularly true with whites, although given that whites are mostly ready before reds, it's possible we'll see that reds will end up lower too. On our own property, it seems like Syrah, Grenache, and Grenache Blanc have pretty healthy yields out there. Viognier and Vermentino definitely look light. Roussanne, Counoise, and Mourvedre seem average to a bit below. But given that we haven't finished picking anything off our estate yet, it's hard to have the full picture. But I think we can conclude that our hopes of a truly plentiful vintage aren't going to come to pass. Look for more details in our next harvest update.

Meanwhile, I'm going to leave you with one more photo, taken by Vineyard Manager Jordy Lonborg at 4am yesterday. That's the nearly-full moon behind some high clouds, with the stacks of empty picking bins in the foreground. I'm not sure I can remember a more atmospheric harvest photo. There are moments of beauty every day out here. At this time of year, most nights, too.

Roussanne's 2024 Comeback Tour

If you’re a fan of our Roussanne, we’re sure you’ve noticed it’s been in short supply. Last decade we were regularly making between 500 and 1000 cases of our varietal Roussanne while also using it as the lead grape in our Esprit de Tablas Blanc and a supporting player in the Cotes de Tablas Blanc. That was possible because between 2010 and 2020 we harvested an average of 41 tons of Roussanne.

Since 2021, the story has changed. We pulled out a block that was under-performing that summer, but thought we’d be OK because we’d grafted about an acre of Roussanne to established rootstocks on Jewel Ridge the year before. In addition, we planted additional acreage on Jewel Ridge and new acreage on Cote Maduena to replace it. Unfortunately, our timing was bad. The three-year drought that began in 2020 had reached critical levels by 2021, and spring frosts that hit us in 2022 pummeled our largest remaining block of Roussanne and set back the new vines we had planted. Roussanne production, which had declined to 28.1 tons in 2021, cratered to just 10.5 tons in 2022. We weren’t able to make a varietal Roussanne at all, and using every drop of the Roussanne we did harvest in our Esprit Blanc only resulted in an Esprit Blanc with 33% Roussanne, our lowest total ever.

Thankfully, the Roussanne that we harvested those years was exceptional, and the wines that we did make are some of our favorites. If you missed this week’s Instagram Live focusing on the release of the 2022 Esprit and 2022 Esprit Blanc, Neil, Chelsea, and I were all wowed by the intensity and purity of the Roussanne character in the Esprit Blanc.

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Roussanne production bounced back somewhat in 2023, but less than we’d hoped as the frost damage from the year before proved serious enough that it impacted crop levels the next year. We harvested just 26.2 tons of Roussanne, but on a positive note, that included the first Roussanne from our Jewel Ridge plantings from the 2020 grafts. Although it only came to 1.23 tons it was remarkable. In total, we were able to increase the Roussanne percentage in the 2023 Esprit Blanc and will be bottling a small (260 case) varietal Roussanne in December.

Fast-forward to 2024. One of the grapes we’re most excited about in the vineyard is Roussanne. It’s a low-vigor vine in general, and often by this point in September, the vines can look pretty ragged. This year, they’re looking full of life. This is particularly evident on Jewel Ridge, where the young head-trained, wide-spaced vines are so bushy that Neil described them today as an "octopus". You can see from the below photo what he means:

Below those enormous canopies, Roussanne clusters are sheltered from the direct sun:

We’ve already harvested our first pick off of Jewel Ridge and at 1.45 tons are already above last year’s total with roughly two-thirds of the block still to go. The fact that this Roussanne is coming in so much earlier than we're accustomed to it ripening here is a great indicator of the health of this block. That wine is currently sitting in barrel in our cellar:

It's not only the Jewel Ridge Roussanne that is looking better this year. Even our older blocks are looking vigorous, at least by Roussanne standards. The block that we call "New Hill", where I photographed this vine (left) and two of the clusters on it (right) was planted in 1999, so this is 25-year-old Roussanne, looking good:

And there’s more good news for Roussanne on the horizon:

Roussanne, while susceptible to drought, seems to respond well to rainy years. With the 80” of rain we received between the last two winters, and another year separated from the ferocious frost event of 2022, Roussanne seems recovered and ready to put maximum effort into its fruit this year.

The 7 acres of Roussanne we planted between Jewel Ridge and Cotes Maduena in 2021 will reach their 3^rd leaf this year, and while we’re not going to let them hang too much crop, we’ll get some, and will get more for sure in future years.

We planted another 5 acres last summer, so additional reinforcements are on their way.

Roussanne, our most important white variety, seems to be on its comeback tour.

Harvest 2024 begins under ideal conditions as moderate temperatures return

At around 5am today, we kicked off the 2024 harvest with six bins of Viognier from the top of our tallest hill. Conditions were perfect; it was in the low 50s, which meant that the fruit got into the cellar chilly. As we were finishing up, the sun started to rise over the eastern hills:

As we’d expected, this was neither a particularly early beginning harvest (like 2022, when we started on August 17th) nor was it a late start (like 2023, when we didn’t bring in estate fruit until September 14th). That’s not surprising given that the first half of the summer was quite cool, though not as cool as 2023, while for six weeks starting early July it’s been hot. Now it looks like we’ve settled into an ideal pattern. Check out the temperatures compared to average (and compared to the previous six weeks) since August 12th:

The first pick is always a milestone, with the cellar team joining the vineyard crew out in the field. The crew, many of whom have been here for decades, always get a kick out of this. David Maduena, our long-time Vineyard Manager (pictured below at the back of the bin trailer) is starting his 31st harvest here.

In the cellar, we’ve been spending the last few weeks washing everything and checking that all our equipment is working properly. It’s all so empty that it feels like we’re working in a new facility. It won’t feel like that for long.

The team has already done a bunch of sampling today, and we expect some reds in tomorrow. Nothing off the estate yet (and maybe not for a week or two) but we should get the Pinot Noir from our place in the Templeton Gap and some Syrah for Patelin de Tablas. We’re thinking that yields are likely to be similar to last year, maybe a little better in grapes like Roussanne and Syrah. We’ll know more, obviously, in a few weeks. 

One thing that is clear is that we're looking at a harvest that seems more like a marathon than a sprint. There isn't any major heat in the forecast, with a minor warm-up this week (highs likely topping out in the low-to-mid-90s) followed by a weak low pressure system likely cooling things down so that our highs will be in the mid-80s. All of the red grapes on the estate, with the exception of some of the hilltop blocks of Syrah, are still in the middle of veraison. In some blocks it’s barely started. These photos of Grenache (left) and Counoise (right) were taken late last week.

All this is normal, and good. Ripening conditions appear ideal. The vines look healthy. An extended harvest always allows us more time to sample and to make better use of our tanks. It’s always good to ease into harvest rather than have it start like an avalanche. We’ll have lots more to share with you soon. Stay tuned.

Veraison 2024 suggests an early-September kickoff to harvest... then a break… then a mid-September kickoff to harvest

By Ian Consoli

Veraison, if you're unfamiliar with the term, is a physiological stage of grape development where the berries stop accumulating mass and start accumulating sugar. More visibly, red grapes start their color change from green, while white grapes take on more of a yellow tint. Both red and white grapes start to soften. The onset of veraison comes roughly six weeks before the beginning of harvest, and gives us our best estimate for what sort of schedule we're likely looking at. And it's lovely. Witness this massive Grenache cluster, from the dry-farmed section of our Crosshairs block. At roughly 10" in diameter, it showcases the vigor we're seeing in our dry-farmed blocks specifically. It's a sight to behold:

The story of this year's veraison is its irregularity. We attribute this irregularity, in part, to an early budbreak for Syrah, Viognier, and some Grenache blocks that was followed by a cool down at the end of March and start of April, culminating in a frost event on April 6^th. That cold spell forced soil temperatures down and kept the other varieties in dormancy. Between that and the series of heatwaves pushing temperatures over 100˚F (the threshold at which vines shut down for the day), we're expecting a somewhat staggered start to #harvest2024. With that observation in mind, the weather is at an optimal temperature pattern right now, and things are moving fast. I thought I'd take a quick romp through all the different red Rhone varieties to give you a sense of where each stands. At the end, I've included a chart with how this year compares to other recent years and made some predictions about when we're likely to start picking.

We spotted our first color in the vineyard in Syrah on July 23rd. Now, a little more than two weeks later, every variety is showing at least the first stages of color change, and the early grapes are mostly red. I'll start with Syrah, as usual the first Rhone red to enter version and the fastest to change colors, and go roughly from most-veraison to least. The cluster here is a bit ahead of the average in the vineyard, and I'd estimate that we're probably around 80% through veraison in Syrah overall:

Next is probably Muscardin. It came in second last year and we were unsure whether it was unusual or not, since it is our newest arrival and we don't have many years of history. As we're getting to know it better, it does seem to go through veraison on the early side. It's not as dark red as Syrah (nor will it be at harvest) but overall it looks like it's about 60% of the way through:

Grenache is next in line, at roughly 40% veraison overall. It's always a particularly pretty grape to watch change color, with the berries turning jewel-like in the sun. Look for lots more Grenache pictures in the next month:

Next is Mourvedre. Mourvedre is an unusual grape in that it can start going through veraison on the early side, but is one of the last to be picked. This characteristic long-ripening period means it just takes longer than the others do in this stage. These clusters are fairly typical, and I'd estimate it is 30-40% through veraison overall:

Counoise is the next one up. It is relatively impossible to find clusters with color at the lower parts of the Counoise block, with clusters similar to the one below about mid-way up. The clusters at the top of the block have a bit more color, putting our estimate around 20% veraison overall. Note the characteristic large berries still have some growing to do:

Veraison in the last three Rhone varieties we grow are just getting started or nearly non-existent.

Cinsaut is surprising because it's not typically a late ripener, and the literature says it ripens pretty much in sync with Grenache. But the cluster below was one of just a few with any color at all. Maybe 5% veraison overall:

Terret Noir took some searching to find any color. This cluster, with a few pink-purple berries in a sea of green, is about as advanced as it gets. I'd estimate we're around 2-3% on Terret overall:

Vaccarese simply had no color at all. I searched through the entire block (which isn't difficult, given it's only eight rows) and couldn't find a single berry with color. Vaccarese tends to be one of the latest varieties to reach veraison every year.

Although it's less visually exciting than with reds, white grapes also go through veraison. The grapes turn from green to something a little yellower and soften and start to get sweet. They also become more translucent. The process happens over a continuum as it does in the reds. Viognier goes first, followed by Vermentino, Marsanne, and Grenache Blanc, with Picpoul and Roussanne bringing up the rear. You can see the slight translucency that the berries of Grenache Blanc (left) and Vermentino (right) are starting to pick up:

While the veraison posts you're likely seeing from your favorite wineries may make it seem like veraison is a moment, like Christmas, it's probably better understood as a continuum, like winter, and first veraison is like first frost, or first snowfall. It will likely be a week until all the Syrah clusters at Tablas are red, and 3-4 weeks until the last clusters of later grapes like Mourvedre and Counoise have finished coloring up.

While six weeks is a good basic guide for the duration between the onset of veraison and the beginning of harvest, it's not totally constant and will be influenced by the weather that we get in the interim, as well as by the amount of fruit the vines are carrying and the inherent tendencies of the different varieties. For example, a consistently cool summer and a plentiful crop in 2010 gave us a full seven weeks between veraison and our first harvest, while 2021's consistent heat and low yields gave us just a five-week interim. Each vintage since 2010 is compiled in the chart below, with each year linked to Jason's blog post about that year's version:

 

Year	First Veraison Noted	Estate Harvest Begins	# of Days
2010	July 30	September 16	49
2011	August 5	September 20	47
2012	July 25	September 5	42
2013	July 17	August 26	40
2014	July 9	August 23	45
2015	July 18	August 26	39
2016	July 13	August 18	36
2017	July 20	August 30	41
2018	July 29	September 10	43
2019	July 30	September 4	36
2020	July 21	August 25	35
2021	July 21	August 24	34
2022	July 12	August 17	36
2023	August 7	September 14	38
2024	July 24	?	?

Using the range of durations between first veraison and first harvest (34 to 49 days), we can try to predict when we might begin harvest in this irregular year. Those raw numbers suggest that we’ll start sometime between August 27^th and September 12^th, which seems safe enough but also a wide range. Vineyard Manager Jordan Lonborg sees us beginning harvest on the first week of September for grapes that bloomed before the cool down, like Viognier and Syrah. Then, we'll likely have two slow weeks before the real push of harvest begins. The weather between now and then will determine where in the range we'll fall, influenced as well by the crop levels, since lighter crops ripen faster than heavier ones.

Overall, we're seeing crop levels similar to last year, with exciting standouts in much-needed white varieties like Grenache Blanc, Picpoul, Marsanne, and Bourboulenc. It is interesting because, even with all the rain we received the last two winters, we see relatively small berries, but large cluster sizes make up for it. That may be due to the hot summer. We averaged highs of 98.5˚F in July and 99.3˚F so far in August. Heat is good until temperatures exceed 100˚F and the vines shut down for the day. Those periodic shutdowns can result in uneven ripening. As we push to the second half of August, we're in a perfect heat pattern in the mid-90's, and everything should proceed as scheduled if this pattern continues.

What's next for the vineyard? We'll watch the different grapes go through veraison. That progress is already happening fast, and the view in the vineyard is changing daily. We'll be posting regular photos of veraison's progress on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages. In a few weeks, we'll start sampling the early varieties, looking for the moment when the flavors are fully developed and the balance of sugars and acids is ideal. In the cellar, we've already started to get ready by finishing our blending of the 2023s and pulling out and checking on all the tanks and equipment we'll need once harvest begins. It's likely too that we'll see some grapes from Patelin or Lignée vineyards, and from the Haas Vineyard Pinot Noir, before anything comes off our estate. Those grapes should start coming in a couple of weeks.

So, now we wait and enjoy the show. We have an idea of how much time is on our timer, and we know Mother Nature has pushed “start”.

Sunburn and silver linings: Taking stock after 2024's first heat wave.

The cool start to the growing season feels like eons ago. For the last three weeks, since June 21st, we've been in a classic Paso Robles summer heat wave. It didn't start out all that dramatic; between June 21st and June 30th the average high temperatures were about 93°F. That was a lot warmer than the first two-thirds of the month (average high 86.5°F) but only about three degrees above average for the season. But since the calendar flipped to July, it's been scorching. The average high in July so far has been 104.4°F, with nine of the eleven days topping the century mark and a maximum high of 111.9°F on July 6th. That average is nearly 13 degrees warmer than normal in what is already one of our hottest seasons. The full picture to date:

Grapevines evolved in a hot, dry climate, and do pretty well up to about 100°F. But above that there start to be consequences. The biggest of these is sunburn. If it's really hot for an extended stretch, exposed grape clusters can suffer direct damage as cell membranes break down, compromising a berry's skin and allowing the liquid inside to evaporate away. The result is hard, brown, sour raisins, as in this Marsanne cluster:

The temperatures required to cause this sort of cellular damage in grapes is typically around 125°F. Even in a Paso Robles heat wave we don't ever see ambient temperatures this hot. But fruit that's exposed to the sun can see temperatures 20°F-25°F higher than the ambient air. So, when the temperatures top 100°F, we start to be at risk.

It might seem straightforward to avoid sunburn by leaving more canopy arching over the grape clusters. And we try to do that. But this desire is at odds with what we need to do to keep mildew pressures at bay. In June, we're typically working to remove any lateral shoots and tuck the canes in our trellised blocks up into the wires, all to open up the fruit zone to the free flow of light and air and the lower mildew pressures that come with good air circulation. So it's always a balance between addressing these two risks. For the same reason, we typically orient our vineyard rows in a north-south axis, perpendicular to the prevailing west-east winds. That also allows all the clusters to get some sun exposure, which is good for ripening. In a heat wave, though, this means that the clusters on the west side of a row, which are exposed to sun in the afternoon when it's hotter, are at more risk of sunburn than those on the east side of the rows. These next two photos are taken in the same Grenache block but on opposite sides of a row. First, the east side, which looks great:

Unfortunately, the west side of the row doesn't look as happy, with sunburned berries on the outside:

The impact of the sunburn is uneven across different varieties. Grapes with more vigor, longer canes, and more sprawling shape (think Vermentino, or Bourboulenc, or Syrah) are mostly fine. I'd estimate that we're seeing less than 5% sunburn damage in those varieties of grape. Grapes with less canopy, shorter canes, and less vigor (think Counoise or Mourvedre) show more damage, particularly in younger blocks with less well-developed cordons. In some younger blocks I saw as much as 50% loss from sunburn, though overall across those grape varieties I'd estimate it's more like 25%.  And then there are the grapes like Marsanne, Grenache, Roussanne, and others who sit somewhere in between in growth pattern and damage. Overall, across the vineyard I'd estimate something like a 15% loss.

Unfortunately, the tools that we have to deal with sunburn are limited. There are some vineyards that are experimenting with widespread misting to bring temperatures down in peak heat times, but the infrastructure is expensive and it uses a lot of water. Others put shadecloth out to protect the fruit zones, but that's cumbersome, needs to be replaced every couple of years, and creates a ton of plastic waste that goes straight into the landfill. If it were later in the year, we could turn on our irrigation, and we've done that in some of our most stress-prone blocks, but that's more to stave off any later loss of vigor than it is a way to address the temperature of grape clusters exposed to the sun.

In terms of future options, we've talked about redeveloping vineyards along an east-west axis instead of north-south, so that the fruit zone is always shaded by the canopy. We've also talked about moving our rows farther apart from the 8 feet they are currently, so we can leave the canopies to sprawl more without worrying that they'll start to interconnect and make it difficult to get in and see what's going on. But those changes will have to wait for new plantings. Meanwhile we'll have to make do with half-measures like perhaps only tucking the canes on the east side of a row and letting those on the west side sprawl and provide more shade.

There are three pieces of good news. The first is that we're starting from a position of health. Thanks to two consecutive years of good rain, the vineyard looks healthy, and the canopies are still green and lush. I drove around almost the entire vineyard today and the vines don't look ragged or otherwise stressed, and everything is still a vibrant green:

The second piece of good news is that sunburn at this time of year doesn't typically have a negative impact on fruit quality and can even be an asset. Quantity will be negatively affected, sure. But in terms of quality a bit of sunburn can act like a fruit-thinning pass, increasing the intensity of what remains. And finally, the third piece of good news is that we had some quantity to spare. I spoke to Viticulturist Jordan Lonborg yesterday and he was confident that even with the losses we were going to see a healthy crop above last year's levels. He was even thinking that this might save a fruit-thinning pass and the labor costs that would entail.

I'll leave you with one photo, so as not to have your lasting impression be that this was a disaster. Here's a Grenache block, photographed from below. This is the west side of the vine row, and you can see the clusters ripening, green and plump, while the intense green of the canopy duels with an even bluer sky:

This heat wave is forecast to break tomorrow, and next week to have temperatures average or below. We'll all be grateful. Next stop: veraison.