White Wine Grape Harvest
The white wine grapes were harvested Monday September 7th. The alarm went off at 4:30am and it was time to get going. Coffee made, dogs fed, tractor warmed up and here we go. For 2025 we picked the Sauvignon Blanc and Albariño in the cool of the morning on a Monday. Since this was a busy work day for everyone and these grapes experienced an accelerated ripening, we had to be nimble and react quickly with the harvest. These grapes just didn’t give us the time to plan the communal pick that we so enjoy.
About an hour after the start of harvest the sun decided to get out of bed and join the activity. Heather was able to help for about an hour before she had to leave for work.
Bins of Albariño shortly after the pick. Each bin represents about 25 cases of wine. We harvested enough Albariño to make about 1,500 bottles or so. The smaller portion of Block Four produces about 300 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.
I had hurt my back earlier in the week (weed whacking in the vineyard) so I wasn’t of much use during the harvest except to pick MOG (material other than grape) out of the bins as the crew dumped the harvest lugs into the bins. I could also drive the tractor to move the bins down the hill to the trailer as that didn’t require much of the back.
The Albariño all loaded up on the trailer for transport to the processing center.
Once the grapes arrived at the processing center, we went immediately to press. The grapes first take a ride up the elevator conveyor into the press. This allowed a second sort to remove any remaining MOG. The clean pick in the field significantly reduced the necessity of this secondary sort, but we do it anyways… the stray leaf in the press doesn’t exactly add to the flavor profile of good wine.
Beautiful Albariño grapes taking the ride of their life!
Once the grapes are in the press, the juice is immediately transferred to a holding tank where it is chilled down to allow for a more controlled fermentation. Lab work confirmed the timing was right and we were pleased with the numbers: The Sauvignon Blanc came it a little high at 24.5 Brix but the the acidity was nice at 3.46 and 4.7g/L TA. We will likely add a little bit of acidity to the Sauvignon Blanc as it was a bit riper than the Albariño and we want to preserve that fresh acidity the varietal is known for. The winemaker knows best!
The Albariño reported 21.6 Brix with 3.48ph and 5.1 g/L TA.
Overall we were pleasantly surprised with the numbers and yield from this block of the vineyard. We had feared we would have reduced yields this year due to growing challenges and winds during flowering, but we ended up with similar quantities as last year.
We were also paying close attention to the weather as two days after the pick we had rain… yikes! We dodged a bullet with the weather this year.
These wines will be ready to bottle in April/May of 2026.