2025 Harvest Journal By Jason Haas
Update 1: A warm August gets things going, then a September cooldown pushes pause
Wednesday, September 10th
Sometimes harvest hits like a ton of bricks. Not this year. We're almost two weeks into the 2025 harvest, and it still feels like things are ramping up. On August 28th, we brought in our first estate lot, off of our oldest Viognier planting. Our next estate pick wasn't until a week later, when we cherry-picked some of the ripest Roussanne off of Jewel Ridge on September 4th, along with our first small lots of Syrah and Grenache. A small Marsanne pick came in the following day. And, at least off of the estate, that's been it so far. We haven't picked anything this week, and aren't expecting to. So, at the end of our third week we've only harvested 23.9 tons off the estate, or about 7% of what we're expecting this year.
Most of what has come into the cellar so far has been for Patelin and Lignée. This isn't surprising; most of Paso Robles has been warmer than our location in west Adelaida, while the vineyards we're sourcing fruit for Lignée this year, in the Sierra Foothills and Lodi, have actually seen above-average warmth even as coastal California has been cooler than average. So the harvest chalkboard (right) is dominated by green (non-estate) lots, while the pink (estate) lots make up the decided minority.
All this is a far cry from last year, when sustained heat compressed the harvest and meant that we felt like we were on a full-out sprint from the beginning. By the end of our third week we had harvested 87 tons off the estate, or 29% of our eventual total.
I'll share some thoughts at the end of the blog as to what this all means, but first I want to set the scene for you and share a few images of these early days of harvest. I'll start with the pick of Pinot Noir from the Haas Vineyard, which this year happened on August 29th. This is always a milestone, and the cellar team traditionally joins the vineyard crew for it. It was promising that the yields were up about 20% compared to last year.
Next (right) a photo of the first pick of Viognier, at night under the lights. We try to pick most of our whites at night because the cooler temperatures are better for the grapes and for our team. Reds, which are sturdier, tend to get picked in the morning. Either way, we're usually done in the vineyard by noon, although the work in the cellar will continue into the evening.
It was encouraging that both the old-block Viognier and the Haas Vineyard Pinot Noir came in about 20% above last year's yields. It's too early to generalize with much confidence from this data, but we have no reason to think that later grapes will be less plentiful than earlier ones. We had a relatively warm spring, which meant that budbreak and flowering happened under benign conditions, and then it turned cool, so we didn't lose any crop to sunburn. Of course, last year's 2.35 tons/acre was about 20% below our 20-year average, so if we did see a 20% gain it would still only bring us back to our long-term normal.
This has been a summer without many of the extremes we're used to enduring in Paso Robles. July was the coolest we've ever recorded, with just one day over 100F, an average high of just 88F, and an average low of 48.8F. August warmed up, with an average high of 95.5F, but nights were still cool at 51.8F and we only had six days top 100F.
The relative slowness of the estate harvest has given us a great chance to focus on our Patelin de Tablas Blanc and Patelin de Tablas Rosé. We've brought in 42 tons of white, or about half what we expect in all, and nearly 20 tons of Grenache for direct-pressing into Patelin Rosé, including the bins below. That's about 30% of what we'll expect this season.
To get a graphical sense of the year, one useful method is cumulative growing degree days, a common measurement of heat accumulation during the growing season. You can see the trend diverge below the long-term average in July and then bend back toward it in August. More recently, you can see it bend back down as the last week has been cool, with highs only in the 70s and low 80s. We're definitely warmer than a year like 2023. But it's still cooler than average:
Another way of looking at the climate compared to average is to sum growing degree days by month and compare that to our averages. Doing so shows that we had a warmer-than-usual May and August but a cooler-than-usual June and July. That's how you get to an average start date to harvest, and why we're at the early edge of the range that I projected in my blog about veraison.
One fun addition to this year's harvest: new puppies! We welcomed two new Turkish Boz guardian dogs to the team on August 25th, just a few days before harvest kicked off. Regenerative Specialist Erin Mason has been introducing them to the Spanish Mastiffs and the flock of sheep bit by bit, but they've also been coming along with her on some of the picks. They're about 40 pounds now at 14 weeks and growing fast. They'll be 180 pounds each, eventually.
I asked a few key members of our team for their impressions. Senior Assistant Winemaker Chelsea Franchi provided this:
As (almost) always at this point in harvest, spirits are high and numbers are looking great. We have a strong intern team that’s doing a good job getting their feet under them before things really start cranking in earnest. The moderate, languid spring and summer have provided us with an ideal start to harvest 2025, with the fruit arriving in rolling waves. The weather this week has been perfect to allow things to ripen at a leisurely pace while still maintaining acids and the numbers we’re seeing in the samples are reflecting that reality. The cellar smells rich with fermentation from a huge week last week, but this week has been mellow and relaxed. I think we’re all excited to get into the hard rhythm of things, but taking the time to appreciate this brief lull in action.
Vineyard Operations Manager Austin Collins agreed:
Chelsea has summed the beginning up quite eloquently, as she does. I would absolutely agree with what she has said. We were slammed with grapes last week (mostly whites for Patelin). This week is very much the opposite. The samples that have been coming in for the fruit still on the vines are quite promising. Acid and sugar levels are lining up pretty much exactly the way we would want them to be. This is really nice to see! As the weather continues to be incredibly mild here the ripening will be slow but constant and predictable. The fruit is seemingly retaining great acidity as well. Its noon here currently and it is 71 degrees outside, crazy!
So, that's the report as we finish our third week. Things look good. The vines are still healthy. Crop levels look better than last year, though probably not much above our long-term averages. And the team is in good spirits and ready for the next push.
I'll leave you with one last photo: of the main work table in the cellar. It's got all the hallmarks of the season. The team's water bottles. The bounty of the staff garden and our biodiversity, including fresh flowers, figs, and tomatoes. And the leg of prosciutto that Neil has brought in to provide snacks, each harvest for over a decade. A happy team makes joyful wines.
