Wine Grape Harvest Picks Up in Sonoma County

(Wines&Vines) - Growers and winemakers throughout Sonoma County report that the phenomenal vintage of 2012 could well be matched by 2013.

Grapes appear to be enjoying uniform ripening, and the quality of the fruit arriving at wineries has been excellent. “Everything is amazing,” said Greg Miller, director of wine at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg, Calif. “It’s tough to think that anything could come close to last year.”

He said the winery received its first bins of Merlot on Sept. 12. The fruit was so good, he said, that when it hit conveyors on the crush pad, the sorting crew could have taken a coffee break. “Quality-wise it’s excellent, so we’re pretty excited,” he said.

Miller said that last week he expected the winery, which owns more than 100 acres of estate vineyards and sources grapes from other locations in Alexander Valley, to have completed its Chardonnay harvest by the weekend and then proceed through other red varieties before harvest wraps up with Petit Verdot in two to three weeks.

The first Chardonnay grapes arrived Sept. 6, which is about 10 days earlier than normal because of the warm winter and spring. Miller said the initial expectation was that harvest would be early and big. Rain and the resulting humidity in June, however, required extensive vineyard thinning that brought yields closer to normal.

Sonoma County’s record 2012 crop of more than 267,000 tons was a 68% increase over the cool and rainy vintage of 2011, according to the county crop report. Grapes harvested in Sonoma in 2012 were valued at nearly $600 million. Miller said this vintage has been interesting because when grapes hit certain Brix levels, which have typically indicated that lot is ready for picking, the flavors haven’t necessarily been there. That means some lots have had to stay on the vine a bit longer than normal. “The trick now is to not lose acidity,” he said.