All of the harvested fruit so far this year tastes great and looks beautiful; you might even say it’s a Chamber of Commerce picture-perfect harvest. All the white grapes are off the vines and by the end of this week or early next week, Schweiger, Keenan, School House, Stony Hill and Smith-Madrone will have finished harvest.
The outlier is Spring Mountain Vineyard where Ron Rosenbrand isn’t expecting to finish until mid-November. He also is harvesting an above-average crop. Those of us at higher elevations have seen lower-than-normal crop sizes with our Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot. The Cabernet Sauvignon fruit has especially small berries and loose clusters, which bodes well for the wine quality. The Cabernet Franc had tight clusters which were much shorter than normal.
Written by Stuart Smith, Smith-Madrone Winery, published in Napa Valley Register