“SOME CALIFORNIA WINE GRAPE GROWERS SEE EARLIEST HARVEST IN DECADES” – Sacramento Bee; “EARLIEST HARVEST IN 40 YEARS KICKS OFF IN SONOMA COUNTY” = The Press Democrat; “WE’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT: EARLY HARVEST…” – New York Times; “HEATWAVES AND DROUGHT LEAD TO EARLY GRAPE HARVEST” – BBC; “LODI GRAPE HARVEST BEGINS WEEKS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE…” – CBS News; “EARLY GRAPE HARVEST PROMISES OUTSTANDING QUALITY” – German Wines USA; “THE EARLY GRAPE HARVEST, EARLIER THAN EVER” – Basqvium (Basque Country); “CHAMPAGNE’S 2026 GRAPE HARVEST BEGAN EXCEPTIONALLY EARLY” – Food & Wine.
If you’ve missed the news about this year’s wine grape harvest, and I am sure our home winemakers haven’t, the headlines above tell the story. The general belief is that there hasn’t been a grape harvest this early in the last 30 to 40 years. And the early harvest is not just happening in Santa Barbara where in June they started picking grapes for their sparkling wines. It’s occurring in Napa and Paso Robles, in Spain, in the Burgundy, Bordeaux, Languedoc and Champagne regions of France, in England’s sparkling wine area, in Sicily, and on the Eastern Coast of the US. Just about every wine region in the world is being affected. What’s going on? Why is this happening and how is it going to affect resulting wine’s quantity and quality?
This year’s normal weather pattern was early. There was a mild, wet winter, which produced a large water reserve that allowed the vines to continue to grow in the very hot, humid summer that followed. Practically every aspect of fruit development was almost a month earlier than expected. Ahead of a normal viticulture calendar vines sprouted and flowered, followed by bud break, and finally veraison, which is the critical fruit development when the grapes are changing colors and getting more fructose and glucose sugars while acids decline. The sunny hot weather that caused photosynthesis to increase, also caused the winemaker’s desired sugar accumulation that dictates the alcohol level of wine to rise and the acid level to decline. When that desired sugar and acid level is reached harvest has to being.
And it wasn’t just having an early harvest that had viticulturists and winemakers worried. The weather changes worried them too. The hot, humid summer had caused great concern regarding vines disease. The rain and wind that happened during flowering resulted in shatter and millerandage, the failure to fertilize the flowers and therefore produce smaller grape clusters. The winemakers were seeing smaller crop loads and lighter yields with a forecast of California grape harvest being down 8%. Interestingly, however, they didn’t see lower potential grape quality. The grape clusters that were being harvested had smaller berries but with more intense flavor concentration and therefore higher quality potential.
What happens next? What if the weather patterns are the new norm? What is being done to prepare for that future and keep us supplied with good wine? Grape growers and winemakers will have to adapt as the northern hemisphere’s climate changes and harvests start earlier. They are already considering the need to look into different grapes such as hybrids or new varieties for their regions that can handle the weather variations better than the wine grapes, vitis vinifera, that are today’s mainstays. But it’s not just different grapes that farmers are considering, they are also looking for new and different viticultural practices that break from the customs set centuries ago such as different canopy management, dropping fruit and moving more harvests to nighttime hours. Likewise, winemakers are having to adapt their wine cellar practices as they learn about the weather and its effects on their terroirs and their respective micro and macroclimates.
Media headlines abound regarding weather changes and early wine harvests. Farmers and winemakers are adapting to keep their businesses and industry in tune with the changes. As consumers, our changes must stay parallel with the wineries’. We need to start drinking their wine earlier!
I think Jessica Gasca, founder and winemaker of Story of Soil in the Santa Rita Hills, in Santa Barbara County, sums it up well, “We are in a new normal, which is to expect the unexpected.”
When you get that bottle of wine, vintage 2026, you can expect the unexpected if you wish or just sit back, open it and enjoy! Cheers!
–CL Keedy, Wine Education Committee