2023 Harvest Recap: Late, but Worth the Wait

On Thursday, with the bin of Roussanne pictured below, we completed the 2023 harvest. Well, mostly, at least. We completed the last pick. There's still some of that pick that is sitting on straw in one of our greenhouses, working to get that last little bit of concentration. This last pick was a full month later than the last pick in 2022. If you've been following along with the growing season, that won't be a surprise. But it's still a relief. 

2023 was our coolest year since 2011. That cool weather, combined with a late start thanks to our record rainfall last winter, meant that we came out of dormancy late, hit every marker late, and harvested late. At the beginning of October we were only 10% done, and with El Nino looming in the Pacific, had real worries as to whether or not we'd get the crop in before it started to rain. But we got lucky. The weather warmed up in October, the rain (and frosts) held off, and we were able to pick everything. Check out the degree days trend for the year. 2023 is the bold, red dotted line. The key inflection point is at the beginning of October, at which it bends back up and since we've seen more-or-less average heat accumulation:

Another way of looking at the cool year is going month by month compared to normal. We've had two months that were slightly warmer than average (July and October), three that were slightly cooler than normal (April, May, and August), and two that were significantly chillier than normal (June and September):

As you would suspect, the cool September didn't exactly cause fruit to come tumbling in. But once it warmed up in October, things shifted into high gear. That month included our busiest-ever week of over 140 tons between October 8th and 14th. In the chart below, blue is purchased fruit for the Patelin or Lignée programs, and orange estate-grown fruit. While the timing of the arrival of our purchased grapes is more variable, the estate fruit forms an almost perfect bell curve:

Yields were up 39.9% overall off the estate vs. 2022, which sounds amazing, but it's more a reflection of how low 2022 was than that 2023 was some crazy windfall. We also have some new acreage in production, which means that even with all those new grapes we averaged 3.04 tons/acre. A list of our other vintages that saw crop levels right around 3 tons per acre reads like a "greatest hits" collection and includes 2003, 2007, 2014, 2016, and 2019. But it's worth noting that there's a lot of variation in how different grapes did this year. The grapes that were up sharply were either the whites that were impacted by last year's frosts (Grenache Blanc, Vermentino, Picpoul, and Roussanne) plus Grenache Noir, which saw the most significant increase in producing acreage. Other grapes were flat or even (in the cases of Viognier and Cinsaut) down a bit:

Grape	2023 Yields (tons)	2022 Yields (tons)	% Change vs. 2022
Viognier	10.1	11.9	-15.1%
Marsanne	9.0	8.3	+8.4%
Grenache Blanc	29.3	14.2	+106.3%
Picpoul Blanc	7.2	4.2	+71.4%
Vermentino	13.0	8.7	+49.4%
Bourboulenc	7.2	5.9	+22.0%
Roussanne	26.2	10.5	+149.5%
Other whites	3.2	4.1	-22.0%
Total Whites	105.2	67.8	+55.2%
Grenache	97.1	52.5	+85.0%
Syrah	41.7	39.9	+4.5%
Mourvedre	47.4	42.9	+10.5%
Tannat	15.3	13.5	+13.3%
Counoise	22.4	14.4	+55.6%
Cinsaut	3.6	3.8	-5.3%
Other reds	7.1	8.0	-11.3%
Total Reds	234.6	175.0	+34.1%
Total	339.8	242.8	+39.9%

In trying to pull out trends that aren't just reflections of 2022's weirdness, it seems to me that early grapes (like Viognier, Marsanne, Cinsaut, and Syrah) were pretty much flat compared to last year's low levels, so below-average historically. Vermentino and Grenache Blanc look like exceptions to that rule, but they were frozen last year and even their healthier yields this year are a little below our long-term norms. The grapes that flowered and ripened in the middle of the cycle (think Grenache Noir, Tannat, and Bourboulenc) all saw above-average yields and in many cases were up notably from last year. And the late-sprouting grapes like Counoise, Mourvedre, and Roussanne were somewhere in the middle, up from last year but still around our long-term averages.

Ideally, the outstanding vine health this year pays us off in two ways. First, all that leaf area combined with relatively modest yields should translate into great intensity in the wines. That's consistent with what we're seeing with the deep colors and dramatic flavors in the wines we're tasting so far. But the second payoff is that the cane growth and this year's lack of frosts should put the vines in position to produce well next year too. The buds that will produce next year's growth, after all, are already formed. They're just waiting for the arrival of spring to show themselves.

We had 129 harvest lots, an increase of 14 vs. 2022. These included 12 more estate lots (94 instead of 82), two more Lignée lots (4 instead of 2) and the same number of Patelin lots (31). The combination of the increased fruit off the estate and some larger Patelin lots meant that we processed 35% more fruit this year than we did in 2022. No wonder the cellar team was ready to celebrate! In the photo below of our harvest chalkboard, estate lots are in white, while purchased lots are green. Each line represents one pick. And yes, we have five more lots that we're going to have to figure out how to fit into those last three lines:

One 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

It's been a long time since we saw sugar and (especially) pH numbers like this. In fact, you need to go back to 2010 to find a comparable year. How big a difference does 0.19 pH points make? A lot more than you might think. pH is measured in a logarithmic scale, so a pH of 3 has ten times the concentration of acid ions as a pH of 4. So the average pH of 3.51 is 55% more acidic than the average pH of 3.70 we saw last year. That's why Chelsea described what we were seeing as "dream chemistry" in an Instagram Live we recorded mid-harvest. We can thank this year's cooler weather and lack of heat spikes for the vibrant acids, but I also think it points to the health of the vineyard thanks to the ample rain last winter and the years of regenerative farming that have allowed it to hold that water in a zone where the vines' roots can find it. 

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, that's the last time of the season: 

In character, it's early to tell what things will be like, but I asked Senior Assistant Winemaker Chelsea Franchi to sum up the vintage, and she was enthusiastic: "the long ripening really helped us out with the depth and intensity. Even this early the aromas are so nuanced, layered, and complex. If this is a sign of things to come I think we've got a really exciting vintage ahead of us." We're all looking forward to getting to know the wines of 2023 even better in coming weeks.

With rain in the forecast for later this week, we've been pushing to get the vineyard prepped for winter. We've been spreading compost, seeding cover crop, and laying straw on our vineyard roads:

Just as this year has gone since the beginning, it looks like we'll get it done just in time. We've been telling ourselves, for what feels like months, that we'll have a rest when we get to Thanksgiving. It looks like that's about right. And there will be plenty to give thanks for.

Knowing rain is on the way makes our brief, lovely autumn all the more special

It's always a shock when daylight savings ends, and I realize it's already dark as I wrap up my work day. But there are rewards of having the sun set while I'm still at work, not least that I can look out my office window, realize that the light is breathtaking, and grab my phone and head out to the vineyard. I did that yesterday and got some shots that I loved. First, a photo of Sadie (who turns 9 today) prowling through my beauty shot. The aura of light makes it look like I photoshopped her into the picture, but I didn't.

The low sun angles brings out the autumn colors in the vines. A different view of the vineyard block above, looking south over the Syrah and Roussanne instead of west, shows the warm yellows and oranges that join the green in this season.

I got another view that highlights the fall colors looking downhill through our oldest Counoise block (also the oldest Counoise block in California):

I sometimes feel like I've taken every picture there is to take here, but I got a perspective I've never noticed before, with the sun at my back silhouetting one of our big valley oak trees against the warm colors of an old Grenache block. I'm not sure there is a more "Paso Robles in autumn" shot than this one:

I got up on top of the ridge you see in the above photo and was able to get a photo of the sun setting where there was also enough light to illuminate the Grenache vines in the foreground:

We've started shifting our focus from bringing in our grapes (there's only a little Roussanne left out) to prepping our land for the coming rainy season. This tractor probably isn't going to have any more grapes to haul:

We know we've gotten lucky with frosts. Much of Paso Robles has gotten a few already, with some temperatures down in the mid-20s. That's not an issue for grapevines that have already been picked, but if there's still fruit out, a hard frost will kill off the leaves and mean there won't be any more ripening because photosynthesis is over for the year. At that point, the leaves turn brown and crispy, ready to fall off as the vine transitions into its winter dormancy. Those are the conditions that I see every day looking out my window, as we had a few frosts last week in the Templeton Gap. Now that vineyard -- source of our Full Circle Pinot Noir -- looks ready for winter. Soon, the whole vineyard will:

This brief-but-beautiful autumn season will end as soon as we get a hard freeze out at Tablas, which could happen as soon as this weekend. And whether it freezes or not, it looks like we're about to make our transition to winter. The first winter storm of the season is forecast to arrive next Tuesday:

This morning's update: It still looks like 1 and 3 inches of rainfall between November 15 and 18, with the heaviest precipitation on the 17th for the Central Coast. #CAwx 🌧️ pic.twitter.com/OJiTrs2gQs

— John Lindsey (@PGE_John) November 8, 2023

That transition is perfectly timed, from our perspective. We should be done picking this week. We'll have a chance to get cover crop seed down where it needs to go before the rain. We should have a chance to do some keyline plowing to help slow down the surface flow of water and encourage deeper penetration. And the quantities are perfect for a first storm: enough to do more than wet the surface, but not enough to worry about erosion before the cover crop has sprouted.

We feel like since October the 2023 season has played out just as we'd have hoped it would. It seems like that's going to continue for at least a little longer.

Harvest 2023 update: a deep exhale as warm weather brings the finish line in sight

Three weeks ago we were all pretty nervous. We'd had the coolest September in our history, and not just by a little. High temperatures were more than 7.5°F cooler than average, which on top of the delayed growing season meant that as the calendar flipped to October we'd only finished about 10% of the harvest off the estate. With el nino brewing in the Pacific, we were facing a real risk of serious rain coming while significant quantities of our fruit were still out on the vine. We were hoping that the warmer weather that began with the onset of October would stick around long enough to have a real impact on the ripening of our grapes and the timeline of our harvest. Spoiler alert: it did.

Not only have the last three weeks been warmer than normal, they've been nearly as warm as we'd expect September to be. In essence, the months have flipped places. While September's average high was 80.9°F, since October 1st our average high has been 84°F. This has reversed the trend in Growing Degree Days and brought 2023 back up away from the record-cool years of 2010 and 2011:

Even better, that warm weather has come just the way we prefer it. Although we've had eight days in the 90s, the highest high temperature was just 96.4°F. Both of the warm stretches (October 4th-8th and October 18th-20th) were followed by at least three days that topped out in the 70s. That meant that the grapevines could continue to build sugars without losing their acids and without being under an unhealthy amount of stress. And as often happens when a delayed harvest finally gets some heat, the fruit came rolling in. Most days we've had a lineup of bins in our parking lot, waiting to be processed, as we're running presses of newly-harvested whites and newly-fermented reds. The dance of the forklifts is something to behold.

These harvest days start before sunup and finish after dark, with what seems like endless rounds of washing in between. After all, every tank we have will get used five or six times this year. Every press gets used three or four times each day. And all the equipment gets cleaned up and put away every night. I love this photo I got of Gustavo cleaning the red press today as the sun was setting:

The fruit that we've been getting, and the young wines that we've been tasting, look tremendous. We're seeing some of the deepest colors we can remember. The grapes have lovely freshness and lift. I spoke to Chelsea last week for an Instagram Live harvest update, and she described what we were seeing as "dream chemistry". Now maybe you have to work in a winery cellar to dream about chemistry at this time of year, but it gives you a sense of the lovely balance of sugars and acids that we're seeing.

We don't have to look far to know that the clock is ticking. The fall foliage colors on the vines, like this Counoise block below, are telling us that the end is near: 

Still, the grapes that are still out on the vines are there because they need this time. The two clusters below (Counoise, left, and Roussanne, right) are looking and tasting great, but they're sitting only at about 20° Brix and will benefit from another week or two out in the sun:

The mornings are usually starting with a little low-lying fog:

Walking around the vineyard, there are more blocks where the grapes have already been picked than there are with crop still hanging. That gives us the chance to give some of the younger vines (like this three-year-old Syrah) a little post-harvest drink:

We're also giving a little sigh of relief because it looks like yields are significantly recovered from last year. It's most dramatic in the varieties that were frozen last year; we've harvested double the quantity of Grenache Blanc that we did last year and Vermentino is up 49%. But even grapes like Viognier, Marsanne, and Syrah, none of which were impacted by last year's frosts, are seeing crops something like 10% higher than last year. We've already picked 30 more tons of Grenache than we did in 2022, with a couple of blocks still to come. And it seems clear that Roussanne will come in with higher quantity than last year, when it finally gets ripe. Now our biggest unknown is Mourvedre, and when I saw Neil today he sounded more relaxed than he has in weeks. We're no longer worried about whether the fruit will be good, or whether it will get ripe. Now we're just worrying about where we're going to put it. And that's a huge relief.

Harvest Update: After a Record-Cool September, Things Heat Up (Thankfully)

This week, we got our first Grenache off of Jewel Ridge, from an early morning pick. The fruit was lovely, as was the view west over the lines of hills:

Even a few days ago, a view like this would have been hard to come by. We've had consistently chilly, often foggy nights, and a string of days where temperatures have been well below average. For the month, 25 days were below average, with only two above our norms and three others almost exactly average:

And it's not like it was only a little cooler than normal. The daily highs in September were a full 7.5°F cooler than average, meaning that this September has seen temperatures about what an average October would bring. A good way of measuring heat accumulation is Growing Degree Days (GDDs). The average year 2010-2022 saw September accumulate 558 degree days, with a high of 655 in 2020 and a low of 505 in 2013. September of 2023 looks like it's a data error: just 393 GDDs. This has meant that our overall heat accumulation (the dotted red line) is trending away from average, back down toward the very cool years of 2010 or 2011:

All this explains why, two days before we finished harvest last year, we're only about one-third of the way done, and still working on early-ripening grapes like Viognier, Syrah, and Vermentino:

Still, at around 200 tons picked (roughly one-third of our projected total) there's still lots of activity in the cellar. All that Syrah is getting processed, with the portion that's being fermented whole-cluster needing to be foot-treaded twice daily:

Samples are being pulled in all our blocks that look like they might be getting close, with sugars and acids measured and flavors and colors evaluated:

Once Neil and the team in the cellar have decided that something is ready to pick (in this case, the first Grenache from Jewel Ridge) we cue up our crew and get them out early in the morning so that the pick is comfortable and the fruit is cool when it goes into the bins:

Its next stage brings it to the sorting table, where any leaves or other unwanted material is removed before the grapes are de-stemmed and sent to a tank to ferment:

So even though we haven't reached harvest's peak, there's still plenty going on. But we're still grateful for the warmer weather we got this week. If we continue on at the pace we've seen so far, we will surely be picking into mid-November, and with el niño building out in the Pacific, that gets risky. Plus, with the moisture in the ground and the lack of hot weather, we're seeing little pockets of botrytis, a form of rot typically rare in California. While some regions (most notably Sauternes) have harnessed botrytis to make sweet wines, we would definitely prefer to get our fruit in unaffected. And the last few days have delivered. It hit 90 yesterday for the first time since September 10th, surpassed that today, and is supposed to stay warm over the weekend. Typically, if it's been cool late in the growing season, even a short warm-up has a big impact on grapes that are nearly ready. We're expecting a wave of Grenache Blanc, Syrah, Viognier, and even Muscardin off our estate next week, as well as more Patelin components for red, white, and rosé.

If you'd like the detailed version, I decided to change things up with my semi-weekly Instagram Live broadcast and instead of bringing in a guest from outside, to sit down with Neil and have him share what he's seeing. That half-hour conversation is on our Instagram feed or embedded below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tablas Creek Vineyard (@tablascreek)

One thing that I thought was memorable in my conversation with Neil was his comment that a cool harvest and long hang time is great... until it isn't, because you get rain. Everything that we've gotten in so far looks outstanding. We should hit harvest's midpoint next week. The forecast going forward looks great. Still, that only takes us about 10 days. Harvest will likely last another five weeks. We're optimistic, but still, it's been a while since we had a year that pushed us into November and even longer since it did so in conjunction with an el niño. If you see any winemakers out there looking nervously over their shoulders, that's why. Fingers crossed, please, everyone.

A Picture Worth 1,000 Words, 2023 Harvest Edition

This morning I was standing on the crushpad talking to Chelsea. I asked her whether the fermentations had started on the grapes we picked last week. She said that they were just getting going, and mentioned that the plan was to bring the barrels outside so that they could benefit from some of the heat when it warms up. Then she looked at the sky, still densely overcast, and corrected herself: "If it warms up."

The overcast did start to break up at lunchtime, though as of 1:30pm it was still as much clouds as sun in the sky and our temperatures were still only in the low-70s. I got a photo I love, looking up from underneath the canopy of our Bourboulenc block toward that still-mostly-cloudy sky:

In a normal harvest, an overcast day like this would be a rare treat and a chance to catch up after several days of sustained heat. But not in 2023. We haven't had a single 100°F day in the last month, a period in which our average high has been 85.8°F, more than 5°F lower than the long-term average of 91.1°F. We haven't even had a day hit 90°F in the last two weeks. Most of those days have started with several hours of overcast. The full picture since veraison:

The next week looks similar, with forecast highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s. And there's no big warm-up coming; today's ag forecast suggests that we're looking at below-average to average temperatures through the end of September.

How big a deal is this? Maybe it's actually a good thing. I know I'd definitely prefer this to hundred-degree temperatures. It's not like it's in the 50s°F and 60s°F every day. The grapevines are photosynthesizing. Sugars are rising, and acids are falling. Even better, acids are falling slowly, which is giving us something like dream chemistry in the samples we're taking. The vines are thriving in this moderate climate, and looking back at previous years (like September 2014, for example) drives home just how much greener the foliage is now than we're used to seeing in September, which bodes well for their ability to withstand this marathon.

What this weather is doing is shifting our risks from the beginning of harvest to the end. At some point, these low pressure troughs that are bringing this overcast weather will start to come with real moisture and rain. If we're still in the middle of picking -- particularly if we're still picking thin-skinned grapes like Grenache -- that could be a problem. If it's chilly during the harvest season, that will likely mean that our fermentations, which are all done with native yeasts, will likely take longer to complete. But that's a problem for future Tablas Creek. For now, we'll take it. And if you're visiting in the next few weeks, you're in for a treat.

Harvest 2023 begins. What a difference a year makes!

On Tuesday, we brought in our first two lots, both for Patelin: a little less than seven tons of Viognier from a vineyard called New Creations and a little more than six tons of Syrah from Tofino. Both looked great. Yesterday, we brought in the Pinot Noir from the vineyard my dad planted. Today we got the first picks off the estate, seven bins of Vermentino and two bins of (surprise) Roussanne, as well as another Patelin de Tablas lot of Roussanne from Nevarez. And we're off:

All this is a far cry from last year, when sustained heat pushed us to one of our earliest-ever harvests. We started bringing fruit in off the estate on August 17th, and by the 14th of September we were nearly three-quarters done:

I'll share some thoughts at the end of the blog as to what this all means, but first I want to set the scene for you and share some of the images of these early days of harvest. I'll start with the first bins of Viognier, from Austin Collins' viewpoint on the forklift:

Neil got a photo of the first bin of Syrah, waiting in front of the sorting table for de-stemming. He pointed out that it just happened to be in bin #1:

The pick of Pinot Noir from our place is always a milestone, and the cellar team traditionally joins the vineyard crew for it. Viticulturist Jordan Lonborg got some great photos. First, the scene as dawn broke:

Next, a view of the bins on the back of the trailer. That's Vineyard Manager David Maduena overseeing things... the beginning of his 30th harvest here at Tablas Creek!

The fruit looked great. Those are Jordy's boots:

And finally the whole crew, all smiles at the end of the pick:

After those two mellow starting days, today is starting to feel like harvest is getting into full swing. We're pressing Vermentino and Roussanne, which made a surprise early appearance here thanks to the higher elevation and healthy young vines on Jewel Ridge. We've had perfect conditions, with chilly nights and warm but not hot days. The last wisps of fog were still lifting as Neil snapped this shot at the end of the Roussanne harvest:

The Roussanne was textbook; note the classic russet color of the berries, one of the signifiers that they've reached ripeness:

We're also doing a wide sampling across all the relatively early-ripening varieties, including this Syrah. The color is amazingly dark given that this is just a sample and it hasn't been left to macerate:

If you're wondering why we're so much later than last year (OK, the last several years) you need look no further than the cumulative growing degree days, a common measurement of heat accumulation during the growing season. Although July was warm enough that we jumped ahead of the 2010-2011 vintages that we'd been tracking, it cooled back off in August and we're still significantly cooler than any year since 2011. What's more, we're a whopping 23% cooler as measured in growing degree days (dotted red line) than we were last year (dotted pale blue line):

It's too early to say much about yields. The Pinot Noir harvest came in roughly where last year's did, but conditions in the Templeton Gap are different than they are out at the winery, and it didn't suffer any frost damage last year. Neil is thinking that we'll likely see healthy crops, up measurably from last year and maybe even a bit above our long-term averages. Jordy is thinking a little more conservatively, predicting that the combination of plentiful but small clusters, small berries, and some loss due to shatter and millerandage is likely to combine to produce yields above last year but still below our long-term averages. We'll know more in a few weeks, once we've completed the estate harvest of a few more grapes. 

One thing that is clear is that we're looking at a harvest that seems more like a marathon than last year's sprint. There isn't any major heat in the forecast, with most of next week supposed to top out in the 70s and low 80s. That's ideal for quality, and likely to give us the flexibility to bring things in gradually and in multiple passes. But it does mean that we will almost certainly still be harvesting in November. That wouldn't have been unusual in the 2000s, but it's been a while since it's happened. With el nino building in the Pacific, our current worry is whether we'll be done before we get our first winter rains. That's likely a ways off, but anyone who has a line to the weather gods, please put in a good word.

Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the sights, aromas, and energy of harvest. Stay tuned for updates.

Shatter, sunburn, and millerandage: the challenge of estimating crops in a year like 2023

Exactly one year ago we started the 2022 harvest with four tons of Viognier off the estate. Not this year. Here we're still in such an early stage of veraison that there's a lot more green than red out there in the vineyard. On a positive note, the more time that the grapes have on the vines, all other things being equal, the more complexity of flavors. The flip side to that is that the same things that caused us to be behind can potentially impact our yields. I'll dive into the three main issues we're seeing in this blog, and share some conclusions, as best we can tell at this point, at the end. 

Shatter

When grapevines flower, you hope for benign weather: warm (but not too hot), dry, and no major wind events. A month like May of 2017 is a great example of what we're hoping for. That month, our average high was 78.4°F (with our hottest day topping out at 94.2°F). Our average low was 45.7°F (with our coldest night bottoming out at 35.8°F). We saw just 0.18" of precipitation for the month, and no major wind events. June warmed up further and stayed dry. Sound like this year? Not exactly. Because of our late budbreak, we didn't see the early stages of flowering until mid-May, and didn't finish until the second half of June. If you look at this year's flowering period (so roughly the last 10 days of May and the first 20 days of June) our average temperature was 74.2°F, more than four degrees colder than last year's flowering period even though it was three weeks later this year. We didn't have any significant rain, and wind was moderate, but eight days topped out at 65°F or below.

When you have cool, windy, or rainy weather during flowering you can get shatter, or the incomplete fertilization of the flowers and a resulting snaggle-toothed look of a cluster with only some of its berries, like this Grenache bunch:

Different grapes have different proclivities toward shatter, with Grenache being amongst the most shatter-prone. Shatter is far from universal around the vineyard this year, but it's also more prevalent than I can remember seeing in recent years. 

Sunburn

Unlike shatter, sunburn is pretty much exactly what you think. 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 west-facing Grenache cluster: 

The temperatures required to cause this sort of cellular damage in grapes is typically around 125°F. Even in a climate like Paso Robles, 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.

Why would a cool year like 2023 set us up for sunburn damage? Because opening up the clusters to the sun can accelerate ripening and can also significantly reduce your risk of a mildew outbreak by allowing the easier circulation of light and air. That is one reason why many vineyards tie up their canes in early summer, and some even pull leaves away from the fruit zone to further help along this process. These techniques more often come into play in a chilly year, where mildew risks are elevated and where you have reason to worry that you might not get the fruit in before the winter rains start.

Even in this overall-cool year, we've had 13 days top 100°F, including nine in a two-week stretch in late July. We were fortunate that none of those days were hotter than 104°F. When you start to get up closer to 110°F it becomes more and more of an issue. We do what we can to make sure that the clusters are shaded by the canopy. And there isn't much sunburn out there. But there's some.

Millerandage

While we deal with shatter and sunburn to some degree each year, millerandage (also known as hens and chicks) is something we haven't seen much of. Its causes are similar to those of shatter, basically cool or wet weather during fertilization. The result is a mix of full-sized berries and those that are smaller, and often much smaller, like this Syrah cluster: 

Typically, these tiny berries don't have seeds and therefore don't get the same attention that the larger berries do from the plant in ripening. That can mean that when the larger berries are ready to pick, the small ones can still be green, hard, and sour. That always means reduced yields, but often isn't a big deal in quality as those smaller unripe berries stay connected to the clusters during destemming and never make it into our fermentation tanks.

What Does All This Mean?

There is bad news, good news, and news we don't know yet. The bad news is that all three of these issues reduce the quantity of fruit that is available for us to harvest and ferment. I had been hoping for a plentiful vintage (this would have been our first such vintage since 2017) but instead I'm now hoping for something more like average. A silver lining is that after all our rain this past winter, we could afford to see some reduction in crop. In fact, if we hadn't gotten some shatter, we'd likely have to have thinned the fruit pretty aggressively. And if this chilly spring had happened after a dry winter, the starting cluster sizes would have been smaller and we could be looking at fruit levels more like a frost or severe drought vintage like 2011, 2015, or 2022. I don't think that will be the case.

Other than the "it could have been worse" the best news is that none of these three issues are typically negatives in terms of fruit quality and can even be an asset. Quantity will be negatively affected, sure. But in terms of quality we're looking at a very strong year. Berry sizes are small. Clusters are loose and therefore less prone to mildew and rot. Yields per acre should be right in line with our favorite years. We should see outstanding intensity in what we harvest.

There are two things we don't know yet. The first is just how much these three issues are likely to reduce our yields. Typically, we estimate crop by counting clusters and using average cluster sizes. The wide variability between clusters because of shatter and millerendage make estimating more difficult. Plus, different varieties appear to have been impacted to different degrees. The second thing that contributes to uncertainty is that we're still a long way from harvest. If we don't start until mid-September, as I'm guessing, and don't finish until mid-November, that's at least a month and as much as three months for other unknowns to take place. Last year, we had the worst heat wave in our history in early September. There have been years where we've gotten significant rain in October. There could be fires. Heck, next week it looks like we might see some precipitation from a tropical system that is forecast to wander into southern California.

If 2023 is teaching us anything, it's not to count our chicks (and hens) before they're hatched. Stay tuned.

We are headed for our latest harvest since 2011. And maybe our latest ever!

I got back this week from three weeks in Vermont. I try to take that vacation each year, both because it's nice to get out of Paso Robles in what's usually our hottest month and because it's typically a quiet time of year in the vineyard and winery. The grapes are ripening, the wines we've decided on are getting blended, and we're getting the previous vintage into bottle. There aren't a lot of decisions to make. Typically, when I get back in late July, I find a vineyard transformed by at least the early stages of veraison, with purple starting to make its way into what is otherwise a sea of green. Not this year. Check out Syrah, typically the first to show color changes:

Not only is the Syrah not changing color, its berries aren't even full-size yet. Look at all that space in the clusters! Since it's usually a week or two between the berries reaching maximum size and them starting to change color, we're still weeks away. And it's not just Syrah. Let's take a run through the other key red grapes, in more or less the order in which we'd expect to see them harvested. Next would be Grenache:

Grenache is its usual beautiful self, and the berries are larger and rounder than what we're seeing in Syrah... but still hard, green, and sour. Nothing like the Grenache that I posted one year ago yesterday:

Mourvedre is usually next to go through veraison, though it takes more time than the others between veraison and harvest. Our Mourvedre berries are still small, which is unsurprising since we were still seeing the last stages of flowering at the summer solstice:

Finally, Counoise, which even in more precocious years I'd expect to still be all green in late July. This year's berries, though, still have a lot of growing to do before they can even think of starting to turn purple:

Over the last decade, the average date when we've noted our first veraison was July 21st, with a range between July 9th and July 30th. If I'm right and we were still three weeks out as of yesterday, that would put us at August 16th. That's nearly four weeks later than our recent average. 

How does this year stack up against the last two chilly growing seasons that we've experienced, back in 2010 and 2011? In 2010 we saw our first red berry on July 30th, and in 2011 it wasn't until August 5th. Could we possibly be two weeks later than our latest-ever vintage? Maybe that's unlikely. After all, most of the last month has been quite warm, and the recent trend seems to be diverging from the 2010-2011 trend lines. The below chart measures growing degree days by year, with the bold, dotted red line representing 2023:

Late ripening notwithstanding, the vineyard looks great. We're seeing outstanding vine health everywhere. This Syrah section, where we were doing a Biodynamic silica spray yesterday, is a great example:

All the water that we got this winter has meant that our young vines are thriving. In this new Mourvedre block (which we've named the Santos Block after a much loved and deeply missed longtime member of our crew) you can see the two- and three-year-old Mourvedre vines looking green and happy:

The older blocks that we've been working to regenerate, like this Syrah that we've been increasing our vine density through layering, are benefiting from the moisture in the soil too. You can see, if you look closely, how we've turned two healthy Syrah vines (the second and fifth from the left, as you look below) into five over the past few years, by burying the canes and letting them grow new roots:

The reserves of moisture have allowed us to continue planting later in the year than we'd normally think ideal. That's been important because the nurseries too were impacted by the cold, wet winter and have been slow to get us material that's robust enough to plant. Just this week, we completed the year's plantings with Vermentino and Picpoul (pictured) at the base of Jewel Ridge. These vines will get a little supplemental water the first two years, and then will be on their own:

Overall, it's becoming clear that we're looking at a year unlike any that we've seen in our recent history. But I find comfort and context in remembering that the growing season over the last decade has been shifted much earlier than what was historically considered normal, driven by climate change and eight dry years in ten. If we don't start harvest until mid-September and don't finish until early November, which is what I'm guessing at this point, we can have the confidence that the Paso Robles climate should make that possible. Look at years like 2005 (start date September 21st, end date November 7th) or 2010 (start date September 16th, end date November 13th) or 2011 (start date September 20th, end date November 9th), all of which gave us wines we loved.

Will we see our latest-ever veraison? That seems possible, maybe even likely. I think it's less likely, though, that we'll eclipse our latest-ever start or finish to harvest. There's ample warm weather on the horizon, unlike 2010 and 2011. The world's baseline climate is warmer than it was a dozen years ago. And we've become comfortable with harvesting at somewhat lower sugar levels than we were back in that earlier era. But if it does come to pass, we'll take solace in the fact that the vines have the health they need to make this marathon possible. And that as unusual as it seems in our recent context, it's more or less what we were expecting when we settled here three decades ago.

Now, just hoping el nino holds off until Thanksgiving... 

Summer Solstice Vineyard Tour: Late but Lovely in 2023

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how the beginning of June felt like we'd been transported to Santa Barbara for some of their "June Gloom". That unusually cool, overcast weather lasted another week. But the last week has seen things start to feel more summer-like. Not the 100°F temperatures that some associate with summer in Paso Robles, thankfully, but at least sunny and in the upper 70s and low 80s. It's honestly been glorious, and we're feeling lucky that it's this late in the year and we haven't yet seen any oppressive heat.

I was feeling stir-crazy in my office today and with it being so beautiful out I decided to take a ramble around the vineyard. There was enough going on that I thought it would make a fun blog to share with all of you. First, to set the stage, a view looking down through our largest Mourvedre block over the winery and across Las Tablas Creek to Scruffy Hill and Jewel Ridge:

We're excited about all the new vineyard blocks that we have going into the ground or coming into production. In addition to everything going into Jewel Ridge (some 25 acres that have been planted in the last couple of years) we've made the decision to pull out a few underperforming blocks on our original property so we can start fresh. One such block, formerly virus-weakened Roussanne, is being replanted to own-rooted Mourvedre on wider spacing, to help reduce the stress levels on this notoriously stress-prone grape. Note the 33% wider spacing compared to the 20-year-old Grenache block on the left, the higher irrigation lines so sheep can graze more easily, and the amazing sky:

Another Mourvedre block that we planted last year (named the Santos Block after one of our long-time and deeply missed late vineyard crew members) is growing well and looking healthy. We won't get a crop off it this year, but next year is looking likely:

The Syrah block where we've been experimenting with grapevine layering is looking amazing. Both the mother and child vines have leafy, healthy canopies and are carrying fruit. First, an overview photo of a mother vine (center) with canes buried on either side to produce child vines:

And second, a closeup of the cane descending into the ground (foreground) and reemerging thicker and healthy in what had been a missing vine position. You can see the new Syrah clusters hanging down:

Speaking of clusters, despite our worries about shatter due to the chilly spring, we've seen a good fruit set this year, though we're something like a month behind where we've been most recent years. Below, see Grenache (left) and Syrah (right). Normally these berries would be pea-size or larger and starting to squish together into clusters:

There may be some unusual sequencing this year. Counoise (below left) is usually one of the latest grapes to flower. This year it's ahead of the Syrah. And Mourvedre (below right) is just finishing up flowering. If I had to make a prediction, it would be that we're looking at mid-September before we're seriously into harvest, which would be our latest start since 2011.

Once challenge for us this year has been that with all the rain, the cover crops keep re-sprouting even after we've grazed and mowed them. But the flip side of that challenge is that even in our less vigorous blocks we're noting remarkable vigor and vine health. You can see both issues in the below photo looking up our oldest Counoise block:

The grapevines and the cover crops aren't the only plants excited about winter rains. The olive trees are as covered with blossoms as any of us can ever remember:

I'll leave you with one last photo, of one of our handsome head-trained Grenache vines from the western edge of our property. I feel like you can positively see the health of the year bursting out of the vine's pores: 

So, that's the report from the vineyard, as of mid-June. Late, but looking great. Next stop: veraison.

Since when does Paso Robles get "May grey" and "June gloom"? Welcome to 2023.

If you live in California, you're not going to be surprised by this update. But it's been chilly so far this year. Sure, the winter made headlines, with record-breaking rains and cold temperatures. But even since then it hasn't exactly felt like sunny California. After a more-or-less normal April, we've gone back to a weather pattern in much of May and June that feels more like March -- or Mendocino -- than midsummer. Today we've had a heavy overcast as an unusual late-season low pressure system drifts over our area. This is not a sky that you expect to see in conjunction with this landscape:

It's not just the lack of sun. Since May 1st, temperatures here averaged nearly 7°F lower than normal, with only 12 days above seasonal highs and 22 below:

The cool pattern looks likely to persist through at least the middle of the month and perhaps longer, as it's the result of longer-term phenomena (static high pressure systems over the sub-arctic and low-pressure over the sub-tropics off the coast of California). For a more in-depth explanation, I recommend Daniel Swain's Weather West blog and Twitter feed:

New Weather West post out today: Unusual June pattern this week with some showers and thunderstorms possible in unusual places (though fire concerns are low); more cool weather could continue through much of June.#CAwx #CAwater #CAfre https://t.co/cKy6wsb9Ak

— Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) June 5, 2023

The last six weeks or so have been characterized by a deep marine layer and on-shore flow, which has meant that even our warmer days have usually started out foggy. That's not unusual in the early spring here, but it's typically not the case even by early May. And having deep gray clouds over lush green grapevines in early June is even more unusual:

The net result has been that the growing season, which got off to a slow start before catching up a bit in mid-May, has fallen further behind again. We're now something like a couple of weeks behind average, and more like three or four weeks behind most recent years. For a good comparison, check out the blog I published June 3rd, 2022 about fruit set, with pea-size berries in Grenache. By contrast, Grenache is still in mid-flowering today:

Our biggest worry right now is that cool, breezy weather isn't ideal for berry fertilization, and raises the risk of shatter. But no one I talk to is particularly concerned. It hasn't been all that windy (the last month has had only one day with a top wind gust over 20mph), we've had warmer days interspersed between the chilly ones, and it hasn't rained. Even if we do get a passing shower tonight or tomorrow, it doesn't look like it will be much, or that it will stick around for long. Plus, everyone is seeing what we are: unusual vigor in the vineyards thanks to all our winter rain, with large clusters and plenty of leaf area. If we lose a small percentage of that crop, we can afford that better than we would have been able to the last few years.

Finally, there's plenty of runway left in the growing season. We've gotten used to starting to pick in August and finishing by mid-October. But in the 2000s it was more normal that we'd start in mid-September and finish in early November. In Paso Robles that's not a huge risk, since the rainy season doesn't usually start in earnest until around Thanksgiving. That's a big part of why we chose this location. So if we need to wait, we wait. There are even benefits to doing so, as the grapes will spend longer on the vines and we're more likely to be picking in cooler weather.

Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the unusual backdrop to our vineyard activities. "May grey" and "June gloom" aren't normal features of Paso Robles weather. But it seems like in 2023 we're getting a taste of both.