Working
With What Mother Nature Gives Us
In a typical year, the grape harvest is finished by now. To a winemaker, Halloween usually means all grapes have been crushed and are undergoing fermentation on their way to becoming a new vintage. Besides the chill in the fall air, there’s the excitement and anticipation of what this year’s vintage will ultimately be like.
But this was not a typical year in the vineyard. Just like last year, the 2024 growing season got off to a late start due to a cooler-than-normal winter. We also didn’t get as much rain as last year. And the cooler spring and summer temperatures meant slow growth in the vineyard.
All of this resulted in a slower and longer growing season, despite the early September heat spike. So, the grape harvest is a bit later than normal and our OCWS winemakers are still getting grapes.
This year over two dozen of us from the Winemakers Group purchased Merlot, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache and Barbera from Dry Creek Valley. We’re also getting Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Viognier and Chardonnay from Santa Barbara County. Some of us are getting Sagrantino and Primitivo from the Murietta area. While most of this has already arrived, later than usual, we are patiently waiting for the last of it.
Some of our winemakers will get one or two varietals. Some will get a relatively small quantity of grapes, 100 to 200 lbs., which will make around two to five cases of finished wine. Some will get five or six varietals. A few of our bigger producers are getting half a ton of grapes or more.
I was on vacation from mid-September through early October. Not knowing when grapes would arrive, I couldn’t commit to getting any. Though I’m not making wine this fall, there’s still plenty in my cellar from previous vintages so I won’t be running out anytime soon.
Whatever the quantity of grapes or number of varietals, all of us commercial and home winemakers will be working with what Mother Nature gives us. I’m guessing the 2024 vintage will be similar to 2023 when we also had cooler temperatures and a longer growing season. But each vintage is always different. In exactly what way I can’t say yet, but wine is never the same from year to year.
I like to think Mother Nature is always challenging us to learn and grow as winemakers and wine afficionados. Yes, we will be getting Merlot, Viognier and varietals we may have worked with before. But this year’s weather will ultimately produce wines that will be different from those we’ve produced in the past.
As winemakers, maybe we’ll learn different winemaking techniques so our finished wines taste the way we want. Maybe we’ll be forced to pivot and make wines in a different style than originally planned. Or we might produce the most fantastic vintage ever simply by doing as little as possible. Maybe we’ll learn that restraint can be the best way to process our wines.
As wine afficionados, maybe the wines will turn out a bit different than we expect. The lesson might be to simply appreciate them for what they are. Maybe the wines will end up being better with food than by themselves, or vice versa, or better when paired with different foods than we would typically pair them with.
That’s the excitement and anticipation of a new vintage. We don’t know what Mother Nature is giving us. We just learn to accept it and do the best we can, not knowing the ultimate outcome until we start pulling the corks sometime in the future.
—Ed Reyes, ed@ocws.org