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With begin of harvest, crop looks smaller

ERRATIC WEATHER IMPACTS VINES; FROST LEAVES SOME IRRIGATION PONDS LOW

NORTH COAST – The first of this year’s North Coast winegrapes started arriving at some sparkling wine houses last week, and vintners are saying that intense frost, heat and wind problems early in the season appear to have produced a slightly smaller-than-average crop but one with intense flavor and color.

Combined with a dry spring and summer, grape berry sizes are reported to be generally smaller, allowing more air and sun exposure to the clusters during maturation and a higher skin-to-juice ratio during winemaking.

A few sparkling wine houses such as J Vineyards & Winery near Healdsburg and Domaine Chandon in Napa started harvesting in earnest last week. Others, such as Mumm Napa in Rutherford, Domaine Carneros and Schramsberg Vineyards in Calistoga are gearing up for picking this week.

J winemaker George Bursick sent his pickers into the vineyards last Thursday at 3 a.m. to start bringing in pinot noir and pinot munier as well as some pinot grigio.

“We had ideal weather conditions this summer, and the quality of our crop will be outstanding,” he said.

However, the warm, even temperatures during most of the growing season could create a labor crunch if the vineyards mature all at once, according to Mr. Bursick. “Our biggest challenge will be securing enough bodies to pick all of the fruit,” he said.

Also challenging with the spotty frost damage in a stricken vineyard is the labor-intensive harvesting needed to pick and choose which fruit to pick, according to Eileen Crane, president and wine-maker of Domaine Carneros. “Word around here is that the crop could be a little short like 2007, or about 10 percent to 15 percent below average,” she said.

Ludovic Dervin, winemaker for Mumm Napa, also is expecting a fast-paced harvest, capping off a harried year for vineyard workers. First, crews had 20 to 30 sleepless spring nights battling frost. “We had one area we were irrigating for frost protection, and 10 days later we were irrigating for 100-degree weather,” Mr. Dervin said. “I’ve never seen that.”

Then a torrent of wildfires in June and July kept workers out of the vineyards because of heavy smoke, forcing crews tending Mumm Napa’s grapes to work long hours to catch up when the smoke cleared. Now, flocks of hungry migratory birds are showing up earlier than expected, putting crews back into action to cover vine rows with protective nets.

“It could be a sign of an early fall,” Mr. Dervin said about the birds.

The sparkling wine harvest starts a month or more before the first grapes are picked for white table wines because grapes for sparkling wines are picked at lower sugar levels. It’s a time for wineries and growers to preview the potential size and quality of the rest of the harvest. But a lot can happen between now and then weather-wise to affect timing and yields for the bulk of the harvest.

While the marine effect of San Pablo Bay saved most of Mumm Napa’s vines from frost damage, some hard-hit areas could have problems with enough water available for irrigation to ride out heat spikes late in the season, according to Mr. Dervin.

A few white table grapes are coming in early. Mitch Cosentino, founding winemaker of Cosentino Signature Wineries, harvested five tons of sauvignon blanc in Pope Valley last Thursday. He was checking the vineyard for frost damage, which destroyed 80 percent of one his vineyard blocks of chardonnay and nearly as much of high-end cabernet sauvignon in another block, though it revealed superb flavor concentration and sugar levels of 21 degrees brix.

By comparison, Cosentino’s sauvignon blanc in Lodi is at 17.5 degrees brix. “It’s the earliest I’ve ever picked for still wine,” he said. However, he noted that grapes near his Pope Valley vineyard likely have a couple of more weeks before they are picked.

Napa-based Premier Pacific Vineyards, which farms 750 acres of grapes in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties, doesn’t expect to start picking Sonoma Coast pinot noir for table wine until the third week of September, followed by chardonnay, according to Patrick Mahaney, vineyard marketing director.

“It’s shaping up to be a good year,” he said about the anticipated harvest. “But winery salespeople will be disappointed because they will not have as much wine to sell.”