Harvest Underway at Trefethen Family Vineyards

The harvest at Trefethen Family Vineyards is well underway! The weather during September has been fantastic adding a great chapter to a pretty mild season. On our estate in the Oak Knoll District, high temperatures for the past thirty days have exceeded 80F on all but five days. In fact, there were nine days that topped out over 90F and we expect a couple more this week. With the long hang time coming from the mild summer, flavors were already well on track and this recent warmth has brought the chemistry into balance - the sugars jumped up a bit and the acids finally began to drop off. What does that mean? It means we're picking! Over the past few days, we have brought in Pinot Noir, Riesling and Chardonnay. While some of the blocks of Riesling and Chardonnay will certainly linger a bit longer, we also expect to see our first Merlot this week!

In our quest to make the best possible wine, with the smallest possible environmental footprint, we harvest many of our vineyard blocks in the cool early morning hours, often starting as early as 2:00AM. The air temperature is much cooler at this time and so are the grapes. Last week, when the highs reached 100F, the nighttime lows were still in the 40's! Cool grapes better preserve the delicate aromatics which are vital for our fresh white wines and they are less likely to undergo oxidation before being safely pressed to tank or barrel. There is also a tremendous energy savings at the winery because white wine fermentations are all conducted at cool temperatures (50F - 60F) and even most of our red fermentations begin with a "cold soak". Since our grapes arrive cool at the winery, we don't have to spend the energy to cool them down in tank. Night picking even helps with local traffic issues! When our teams are working a shift from 2:00AM to 10:00AM, that means fewer cars on the road during the rush hour commute. And, lastly, the vineyard crew actually enjoys it. Sure, it takes a couple days to get in the rhythm but we light the vineyard well so they can see the grapes and doing the heavy work of harvest is easier at night compared to working on a hot afternoon.

Now, I'm off to check out the fermenting juice as the first wines are already bubbling away. Cheers to vintage 2011!

Jon Ruel
Director of Viticulture & Winemaking
Trefethen Family Vineyards

At Trefethen, all the grapes are off the vine!

This past Tuesday, October 26th, we picked the last of our grapes at Trefethen Family Vineyards. Of course, the work of Crush 2010 is hardly over given the number of active fermentations we have right now. But, there is a perceptible sense of relief all around the winery. We are relieved not just because we are done picking but because we are thrilled with the young wines.

This morning, we tasted through some of the Chardonnay lots that are already dry. See photo of winemaker Zeke Neeley and winemaker emeritus Peter Luthi. The acids seem nicely balanced and the range of aromatics is fantastic. Many other lots, both white and red, are still fermenting.

There was one Petit Verdot lot that was ridiculously tannic, a good reminder of the major effect this “minor” variety will have on a blend. The Malbec lots are, as usual, inky in color and very fruity. Cabernet seems to have exceptional color this year, ripe black and red berry flavors and ample tannins.

It was certainly an exciting, and exhausting, vintage in the vineyard but it’s great to see that our hard work paid off. In this mostly cool season, we paid particular attention to our Cabernet Sauvignon, a very noble but very late variety. After a May that was our coolest since 1977, we were concerned that we might be picking well into November. Wanting to wrap up sooner than that, we opted to thin the crop more aggressively than usual, down to under 2 tons per acre in some areas. The net result of our swift action and some beautiful weather in early October is that we got fantastic ripeness and finished picking a full ten days earlier than last year!


I have heard the saying “it takes a lot of beer to make a little wine” and I’ve certainly enjoyed a lager or two over the past couple months. That said, when I went home Tuesday night after our last pick, I opted for a glass of our 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon and believe you me, it had never tasted so good!

If you are in the Napa area this weekend, come on by our winery for some frightfully delicious wines as well as haunted winery tours. Our 19th century winery is all decked out for Halloween. Come check it out!

Cheers to vintage 2010!

Jon Ruel
Director of Viticulture and Winemaking
Trefethen Family Vineyards

Chardonnay coming off the vine at Trefethen!

We began picking our estate-grown Chardonnay this morning at Trefethen Family Vineyards. The vineyard and winery team was joined by members of the Trefethen family as the first few grapes came off the vines. This same vineyard block was the first to be picked last year as well - probably because of the clonal selection and because the vines are among our youngest. This particular clone is a field selection of old Wente with a strong floral muscat character. As we walked the block earlier this week, the grapes were practically singing with flavor. Crafting a complex Chardonnay from our estate vineyard depends on having a diverse mix of clones. We actually have 12 different clones of Chardonnay and adding even small amounts of this Wente clone to a blend can have an amazing effect.

Each picking crew has a mascot - note the "tecolote" or owl on the flag in the photo. The tractor flags help the crew leaders follow each crew in the field and this approach has certainly increased the competitive banter during picking!

In 2009, we picked this block on September 8th, just one day earlier than this year. So, although we expect a gradual ramp-up in harvest over the next couple weeks, the timing is well within our historical range. And we continue to be excited about the prospect of fantastic quality.

Cheers to vintage 2010!

Jon Ruel

Director of Viticulture & Winemaking

Trefethen Family Vineyards

Farming in "real-time" at Trefethen Family Vineyards

Harvest 2010 has officially begun at Trefethen Family Vineyards! At 6:20 this morning, as the sun rose over the Vaca mountains to the east, taking the chill out of the 45-degree air, we picked our first Pinot Noir grapes of the year. Growing more than we need for our estate winery, we sell about 1/3 of the grapes from our estate vineyards to other local wineries. And, as always, this first harvest is for one of our sparkling winery partners because they depend on grapes with lower sugars and higher acids.

Note the blurry hands as Eleuterio "Teo" Gonzalez cuts each Pinot cluster off with lightening speed. Eleuterio, a Trefethen team member since 1996, has always been one of our fastest pickers. And that's saying something. This morning, I checked our pick rate after a couple hours. Across the three crews, we averaged 600 pounds per picker, per hour. Considering that these clusters weigh about 0.20 lbs each, that's an incredible 3,000 clusters per hour or 50 per minute! And Eleuterio is going faster than average!?! Now, I should probably add that we can't keep this rate up during hot weather or in vineyard blocks that have fewer clusters per vine. Furthermore, keeping the pickers picking requires a strong support staff that, among other tasks, makes sure an empty box is always within reach (and offers some cool drinking water to boot). Nonetheless, I think you'll agree those numbers are quite impressive.

We expect to continue picking Pinot for sparkling wine over the next few days and then enjoy a brief break before we get into Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for still wines. Looking at the sample numbers from this morning, Malbec is already reaching 20 degrees brix and may be coming in with those other early varieties. As has been widely reported, this has been a relatively cool vintage with the notable exceptions of last week's heat spell and a nice warm forecast for this week. Here at Trefethen, we took action early in the season to accelerate ripening after seeing some delay as early as April and May. These steps, such as leaving cover crop growing, severely limiting irrigation and thinning both earlier and more aggressively than usual, have helped the vines progress nicely.

The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are running around 10-14 days late and the Cabernet, thanks to our "intervention", is only expected to be 7-10 days late. That said, I always cringe when asked if a season is early or late or if we got more or less than our average rainfall. On my office wall, I have weather data for our estate going back to 1968 when the Trefethen family purchased the property. You know what? In 42 years of winegrowing, we've never had an "average" year. Of course not. It's always wetter or drier, warmer or cooler.. such is the nature of the beast. And, because of that, we never farm for an "average" year. Instead, we farm in real-time, constantly adjusting to the weather at hand - and that's how great wine is crafted, year in and year out. Okay, time for me to get off my soapbox and back into the vineyard.. Cheers to vintage 2010!

Jon Ruel
Director of Viticulture and Winemaking
Trefethen Family Vineyards

Chardonnay at Trefethen Family Vineyards

We brought in our first Chardonnay of the season this morning at Trefethen Family Vineyards in the Oak Knoll District. The vineyard crew began picking the 1.26 acre block of Wente clone Chardonnay in the chilly morning hours. This particular clone has a lot of muscat character and had just reached the point where the berries were singing with flavor!

When the fruit arrived on the crushpad, the Trefethen family joined the crew in celebrating the start of the 2009 Harvest. Nothing like popping the cork on a bottle of sparkling wine at 8:30 in the morning! None for the forklift drivers, of course....

After loading the press with grapes, we headed back out to the vineyard to taste grapes and discuss harvest plans for the rest of the week. We have another Wente clone selection that is nearly ready. This one is called "Hens and Chicks" for its tendency to produce large and small berries on each cluster. We're also looking at some Dijon clone Chardonnay as well as some Pinot Noir for later this week.

Happy Harvest!

Jon Ruel

Trefethen Family Vineyards

Pinot Noir at Trefethen Family Vineyards

Another warm day in the valley... it's already 85F at 10:00AM, having gone up a full 30 degrees since sunrise. This late season heat is sure to accelerate the ripening process after a relatively cool summer so far.

Here at Trefethen Family Vineyards, in addition to growing all the grapes for our estate wines, we also grow grapes for sale to about a dozen other Napa Valley wineries. These winery clients include a few sparkling wine producers and theirs are always the first grapes to come off. They pick at lower sugars to ensure great natural acidity.

We started the sparkling harvest last week and this morning we continue with a block of Pinot Noir going to Domaine Chandon. There's a lot of action in the vineyard right now but we'll be out of there by noon, before the heat really kicks in.

It will likely be another couple weeks before we begin harvest for our estate wines - with our ripest Chardonnay blocks still only around 20 brix. Having just finished bottling the 2008 white wines, that should give us just enough time to prepare the winery for the first load of grapes!