Grape Harvest, Our Favorite Time of Year

Despite wine writers’ laments to the contrary, winemakers do not wait for a certain level of sugar content before harvesting grapes; instead they wait for the flavors of the grape to taste “ripe”. This is a sensory judgment rather than a scientific one. We monitor sugar, pH, and acidity as guidelines, but fruit is rarely picked until our winemaker says that it is ripe or when the vines begin the inevitable shutdown that marks the end of the growing season. In some years, the nature of the Fall harvest can have us on pins and needles as we wait to see if enough green leaves remain on the vines to drive the fruit forward to its final goal.

Nevertheless, we are very patient with our vineyard, and that patience has rewarded us in the flavors of the fruit we bring in. Yields are sometimes lower than expected – meaning that there is less wine available at bottle release – but generally, the quality and elegance of the wine we have produced has been excellent.

It’s fun to experience harvest with everyone in the family involved. We go out to the vineyard with our curved harvest knives in hand and a plastic lug that holds about 40 pounds of grapes. We find, though, that we typically only fill half of the lug before the tractor arrives to haul it back to the trailer, where we often find all of the other lugs brimming full with fruit. Needless to say, the acknowledgments we receive from the picking crews are given more out of charity than admiration! We know that picking grapes is hard work and we are grateful to have such efficient and thorough crews.

We also enjoy having guests each year to assist us with the grape harvest. It is terrific to have our guests come out to the winery to help and encourage us. After the harvest work is done for the day, we gather by the fireplace out by the pool, and everyone stays up to drink wine, make smores, and talk by the fire.

We continue to enjoy making wine and sharing it with friends. We have a great deal to be thankful for.

Green Harvest in Fantesca’s Vineyard

Each year during June, we practice a green harvest technique whereby we work methodically through the vineyard to remove as much as half of its fruit. This effort allows each vine to put all its energy into creating the optimal amount of sugars in the remaining clusters. This task is labor-intensive but is important because it concentrates the flavors of the grapes to ultimately affect the character of our wines.

Coming from a farming background where you are trying to grow as much wheat, barley, and alfalfa as you can, I can’t say I enjoy our green harvest. It seems so antithetical to see all these little green bunches of grapes lying on the ground, cut down before reaching their purple prime, especially when most farmers think in simple economic terms of greatest tonnage per acre.

Transitioning to being a farmer of grapes has truly been a paradigm shift for me, because by dropping fruit and limiting water, we greatly reduce the tons per acre that the vineyard will yield. This practice drives up the cost of fruit, but it is the commitment that is required to create our wines.

I always think about the audacity of the first winemakers in Napa that made the commitment to establish a green harvest program. Andre Tchelitscheff of Beaulieu Vineyards, John Daniels of Inglenook, and Robert Mondavi are giants in American winemaking who made these expensive commitments to their vineyards without any assurances that they would yield great wines. These commitments took a lot of courage because they were made many years before their wines were ready for anyone to try and years more before their efforts were recognized. I can only imagine what their neighbors must have said about their aspirations to grandeur. But time has proven them right, and everyone who makes great wine in the New World owes a debt of gratitude to these Napa Valley pioneers.

— Duane Hoff