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

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!