5 Things We Know About 2025 Harvest So Far

We’re about 3-4 weeks away from beginning harvest and I'm very excited about the 2025 season to date! There are five key reasons:

1) Our growing degree days, or cumulative measure of heat for the growing season, was running about 20% higher than the 30 year average through July, but 20% lower than the recent warm vintage of 2015. My goal is always to keep alcohol, acidity, and tannin of the wines in balance and we have a better shot of doing so in a year with growing degree days like we’re seeing now than in a year in which growing degree days are either so high that alcohols will be much higher than acidity and tannin levels (e.g., 2015) or so low that alcohols will be much lower than acidity and tannin levels (e.g., 2011).

2) I'm seeing some “hen and chick,” or uneven ripening, in some vineyards. I love this in a warmer vintage because the small green berries within the cluster won't fully mature, bringing acidity into the mix. I was particularly enthusiastic to find this in our Chardonnay block at Fairsing Vineyard. As a side note, I had a proud mom moment when we were walking our block of Pinot at Kalita Vineyard and Gabriella said, “There’s a lot of hen and chick here, Mom- that will be good for acidity.”

3) Crop loads have been reasonable, meaning that they have been around historical averages and not as heavy as we’ve seen in many vintages of the past decade. This is naturally established by the weather at fruit set (usually July), but we “correct” it by dropping fruit in August to ensure that flavor development and ripening is concentrated on the clusters that remain. However, having it established naturally bodes well for the potential concentration of the wines. We will still drop fruit by hand, but we are closer to our yield targets than we have been in many recent vintages.

4) The berries and clusters appear to be moderately sized, which is a good omen for tannin development. This is because much of the tannin comes from the skin, so moderately sized berries have nice skin to juice ratios as opposed to years in which berries and clusters have been huge, resulting in wines that are very juicy but have less tannin structure (e.g., 2015).

5) We had lovely weather when leafy canopies were developing, which means we have nice shade to protect the clusters. This is relevant because late August heat could cause berries to sunburn if they are not protected.

All of these factors- growing degree days, hen and chick, reasonable crop load levels, average sized berries and clusters, and protective canopies- make me hopeful that we'll have fruit forward ripeness balanced by retained acidity and tannin structure. Of course, it depends on what happens in the next month, but I'm as optimistic as I can be at this stage!