Thanks for posting. Touching on quality, it appears ‘25 has been a very good growing season in California. How do we think this will compare to ‘23?
Too early to tell. No real heat spikes. Maybe winemakers here can comment
Been a great growing season - been 3 very good ones in a row now, with pretty cool, evenly spaced, tempered years. Had a little heat spike here end of Aug, but nothing too bad and it’s been pretty Even Steven after that.
Crop year is a little lighter, which also favors quality - my proxy is always the little postage stamp Knowles vineyard I farm in Lodi: this year it gave 0.6t. I’ve harvested as much as 1t from this vineyard, but the average I would say is around 0.8t. Lowest ever was 0.5t. This tracks with what I’ve heard from other growers, about 20-30% less crop this year.
The sad part is that many older vineyards have been torn out, as they are the first to go during a downturn when farmers move on to other crops. There will still be a record amount of fruit hanging on the vines this year, unharvested. But I’m hopeful we’ve reached the bottom and that it will be a slight improvement for 2026 harvest.
