A bone-dry summer has pulled harvest time earlier at some South
County wineries
– a boon to vintners seeking to spread out the labor-intensive
harvest.
Gilroy – A bone-dry summer has pulled harvest time earlier at some South County wineries – a boon to vintners seeking to spread out the labor-intensive harvest.
It came two weeks early to Clos LaChance in San Martin, where administrative assistant Melanie Gameng raked her fingers through a bin of pearl-like green grapes.
“This heat wave made everything better, and it didn’t hurt the grapes at all,” said Gameng, surveying a warehouse full of barrels stained berry-red with Cabernet. “Plus, when it’s earlier, we can spread out the harvest. In 2005, we got slammed, and everything came in at once. People in the office went out to the fields to help!”
At nearby Hecker Pass Winery, co-owner Carlo Fortino says despite the dry season, the vineyard harvests later than neighboring wineries because they dry-farm, a time-tested practice that requires no irrigation. The vines quench themselves through the taproot, explained Fortino, burrowing as far as 20 feet underground for water. His harvest began this week.
This year, said Fortino, “there’s a little less yield, but the quality, the color, the consistency, is just incredible.”
Heat spurs sugar production in grapes – to a point. When temperatures surge past 98 degrees, grapes stop sweetening, and start to burn, said Gameng. Last summer, a streak of 100-degree-plus temperatures cost local wineries, damaging exposed grapes. Still, wine grapes pulled in impressive sales last year: $7.4 million countywide, more than cattle, cut flowers or cherries.
This summer, temperatures were just high enough to pump up grapes’ sugar production without scorching the fruit. Bill Murphy, co-founder of Clos LaChance – LaChance, his wife’s maiden name, “sounded better than Vin du Murphy,” he joked – called it “an ideal growing season.”
“It should be quite a good season,” echoed Tim Slater, owner of Sarah’s Vineyard, which started harvesting pinot noir last week. “Temperatures were pretty even, and a little bit cooler than normal.” He paused. “Though it didn’t feel like that walking around.”
For Murphy, that’s more good news for South County, an area where winemaking is coming into its own, aided by the new trendiness of wine among young drinkers – and the increased prominence of the Central Coast, as predicted years ago by wine guru Robert Parker Jr.
“We’ve got reasonable land prices and ideal weather patterns,” said Murphy. “The North Central Coast is poised for very rapid growth – and we’re seeing it.”
