August 8, 2023 – 2023 Grape Harvest Is Coming in Hot at Wedding Oak Winery – Winemaker, Van Johnson, Shares His Views from the Vines – It is my first wine grape harvest as the production and head winemaker at Wedding Oak Winery. Ensuring we have ideal fruit for the 2023 vintage has been my entire focus since joining the winery in June. On my very first day on the job, we drove to the Texas High Plains to walk the vineyards to get ready for the harvest that is now well underway.
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t my first time bringing bins of grapes in from the vineyards. Actually, this is my seventh harvest, including a harvest in New Zealand. Like all harvests that have come before, we are working long hours to pick the very best fruit.
It Started Cool, and Got Hot Fast
The cooler-than-normal and wet spring provided a beneficial start to the growing season for the vineyards. The relatively mild weather without late freezes, significant wind events, or widespread hail damage led to an excellent fruit set and overall healthy growth. However, some vineyards we work with in the Hill Country and Texas High Plains suffered loss from spring hail. Fortunately, they are currently bouncing back!
That relative tranquility changed quickly in June with the temperatures rising. The current extreme summer heat poses challenges to protect the grapes from sunburn. It has also expedited the harvesting process with the fast ripening. Some grape varieties like Grenache and Tempranillo were already harvested in July. Brix, a measure of the sugar level in the grapes, and pHs are driving up fast, while total acidity (TA) is dropping at a similar speed, so it’s a race to the finish line. These conditions don’t allow for long hang time for grapes to develop phenolics.
The heat’s intense impact on the vines’ photosynthesis may lead to some variability in grape development. That can potentially affect phenolic compounds’ concentration and overall grape quality. In the vineyard, we have worked to mitigate that issue by reducing our irrigation to slow down the ripening process. However, when the temperature is above 95°F, grapevines begin to shut down and start eating away our TA and pH. To address this, we’re carefully monitoring the grapes to ensure a balance between sugar levels and phenolic ripeness to ensure optimal grape quality. This is especially crucial for red grapes, where the development of secondary and tertiary notes is essential for wine quality. Adjusting the harvest timing based on physiological ripeness indicators, such as pH and total acidity values, is essential to optimize grape flavor and phenolic compounds.
An Encouraging Harvest
The quality and quantity of the harvest in the Hill Country is fantastic. We are definitely getting more tons per acre this year than in recent years. We have just harvested some beautiful fruit from Hye Top Vineyards including great Roussanne and Cabernet Sauvignon. I am really excited to finish up our current Grenache Rose ferment from Mirasol Vineyards. The grapes are excellent.
We’ll move on to the vineyards in the Texas High Plains next. In the Texas High Plains, we are looking forward to harvesting Muscat Canelli from Dimante Doble Vineyards for our Bridal Bliss line, as well as some fantastic Merlot from Lilli of the Vine Vineyards. I expect that Wedding Oak Winery will harvest approximately 10% of our total grape crop for the 2023 vintage from the Texas Hill Country with the remaining 90% coming from the Texas High Plains.
I think the 2023 Texas harvest will bring promising results, with vineyards expecting good crop size and an abundance of grapes. However, the challenges posed by the summer heat necessitate careful attention to detail during the harvesting process.
Ron Yates Wines 2023 Harvest Report
The 2023 wine grape harvest is off to a great start in the Texas Hill Country at Ron Yates Wines, and we are excited to see that this year’s crop is shaping up to be one of the best quality and one of the largest we have ever seen.
Weather is always a key factor in determining the quality of our fruit at harvest. Fortunately, we had a relatively mild growing season without a lot of detrimental events like late freezes, high winds that blow the flowers of the vines, and had minimal hailstorms that damaged the vines. The favorable weather means that 90 to 95 % of the crop at Ron Yates is in great shape. And, let’s not forget up until June 7 we still had cool evenings with the temperatures dipping to 61 degrees. Until then, we were set up for a glorious season.
Well now, things changed a bit in early June and the heat came with a vengeance. It is all we can talk about since then. The inferno heat is causing grapes to ripen earlier than usual, as far as sugar levels are concerned, but the phenolic ripeness isn’t quite there yet. Skilled growers will be able to push hang times a little longer to allow the grapes to fully mature into complexity.
Another really important factor in preparing for harvest is year-round vineyard management. Reagan Sivadon and our vineyard team is doing one hell of a job with managing the vineyard and ensuring proper shoot positioning early in the season to produce optimal fruit and making sure the clusters are in great position for harvest. We actively manage the canopy to expose the clusters to the morning sun by pruning the leaves more and provide a little more shade on the side of the row by allowing more leaves for protection against the evening sun. This method allows for uniformity of ripening for high quality of fruit. Of course, we want a little variance of less ripe fruit for higher acidity, raisined grapes for concentrated fruit flavors while achieving great typicity of style with harmonious fruit flavors. It’s glorious to see the quality of our Hill Country vineyards this season.
The good news is the fruit quality looks great. Its clean with really high output. The output is so good that we’ve had to thin out and drop secondary clusters before veraison in several varieties to ensure we didn’t over-crop and decrease quality. We’re seeing the best yield ever in our Hill Country vineyards. That gives us the luxury to only pick the best clusters. Historically we have maxed at 2.5 tons in our Hill Country vineyards. This year we’re looking at around 3.25 tons per acer. That’s outstanding. Our fruit yields are so good that might have grapes from Spicewood Estate Vineyards for Ron Yates wines.
Harvest started with Sauvignon Blanc, then we moved on to picking Muscat at slightly lower Brix for the sparkling wine program. Next is a cascade of Viognier and Sauvinon Blanc, then later Tempranillo, onto Merlot and Cabernet, and then Graciano and Carignan. The Carignan is just finishing veraison. Tempranillo is looking great and is also just finishing with veraison. We want to give our grapes as much time on the vine as possible to allow them to fully mature, although we’ve picked some red grapes a little early to make rosé wine.
We’re keeping a close watch on the conditions in the vineyards in the Texas High Plains. It’s hot and dusty in the High Plains, but there is really nice fruit set. The Tempranillo in Friesen Vineyard is still rebounding from the drought and high winds of 2021, and we will definitely get higher yields than last year. The Merlot is looking beautiful, clean, and fresh. The Cabernet will be a little lower yield, but it will be really high quality. As a bonus, we’re expecting a decent harvest of fourth-leaf Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot.
Grape growing always has its challenges, but we are up for it. We’ll put in the long days during this harvest season to make sure everything that Mother Nature has brought us comes out great in the 2023 vintage wines.
2023 Wine Grape Harvest at Texas Heritage Vineyard
The wine grape harvest is in full swing at the Texas Heritage Vineyard estate vineyard in Gillespie County, Texas. The vineyard was first planted in 2015 and grows Alicante Bouschet, Malbec, Tempranillo, Souzao, Tannat and Viognier grapes. The Texas Heritage Vineyard team started picking grapes a little bit earlier this year as the temperatures climbed into the triple digits in June. With this excessive heat, things are moving pretty quickly. The team hand-harvested their Viognier beginning at 6:30 on Sunday, July 16. The fruit is absolutely beautiful, and the quality is great. It was a record harvest of Viognier grapes with volunteers picking more grapes than ever before. The Viognier grapes have now been pressed and are in tank waiting to start fermentation.
Texas Heritage Vineyard followed that by harvesting their younger Malbec grapes by hand this past weekend to make rosé wine. Their red grape vines are maturing well and look healthy with excellent grape clusters. Texas Heritage Vineyard owner Susan Johnson believes their yields will be up a little from last year. The heat has caused faster maturation and sugar levels have risen quickly. To combat the heat and lack of rain, they’ve needed to irrigate extensively. The Texas Heritage Vineyard team will begin machine-harvesting the red grape acreage on Friday, July 28 starting with Tannat and the older Malbec vines. Over the next week or so, they will move on to harvest Tempranillo and Alicante Bouschet from the estate vineyard.
On another note, the vineyards at Wildseed Farm lost all of their fruit to hail, and Texas Heritage Vineyard will not have all those white grapes to process this vintage. As such, Texas Heritage Vineyard is buying more fruit from growers in the Texas High Plains to make up for this shortage. It looks like Texas Heritage Vineyard will harvest right around 100 tons of grapes from their estate vineyard and other excellent growers. At the current projections, the fruit will be about 50% Hill Country and 50% High Plains. Exciting times for sure
Fall Creek Vineyards: “Outstanding” Defines the 2023 Harvest
Harvest Report by Sergio Cuadra, Director of Winemaking, Fall Creek Vineyards
We are nearly finished with the 2023 wine grape harvest in the Texas Hill Country at Fall Creek Vineyards. If I had to define this year’s harvest in one word it would be “Outstanding.”
I’m incredibly optimistic that the 2023 vintage resulting from this year’s crop will be outstanding. Every grape that we bring into the winery is very healthy.
Our growers in the Hill Country have had a wonderful year in terms of yield. This year the grape vines have produced healthy and abundant crops. Having more grapes means we can make more wine.
Not only do we have great quantity, but we also have excellent quality. The results from each vineyard for every single lot have exceeded expectations. These grapes are of exceptional quality. We’re seeing this throughout various areas of the Hill Country. We haven’t yet picked grapes in the High Plains; however, we expect to have good results there as well.
The key factor in achieving this quantity and quality is the weather. We had a normal amount of rainfall in the spring with rainy days scattered over several weeks. It was not too wet, and not too drive. The Texas Hill Country had perfect conditions for vine growth and development with the right amounts of water and nutrients early in the season. We didn’t need to achieve that with irrigation because it happened naturally.
Then the drought came and we haven’t had any substantial rain since the beginning of June. Most of June, July, and August have been absolutely dry. This has given us the ability to control the growth of the vines by precisely managing irrigation amounts row by row. The second advantage of drought is there is minimal pest and fungal pressure on the vines because of the lack of moisture in the air.
In spite of the record-high temperatures, the plants are very healthy and in good shape. The grapevines have adapted well to the heat. In some vineyards, the grapes have ripened a little bit earlier than in previous years, but not substantially. In fact, last year we were done with harvest in our vineyards in the Texas Hill Country by August 8. And now in mid-August, we are still waiting to harvest Mourvèdre, our last crop. We are reaching the ripeness we want without needing to harvest early.
The high quality of fruit is true for all grape varieties that we have harvested. Our Tempranillo grapes look fantastic, but they are more tannic than in previous years. We adjusted our pump-over regime accordingly to ensure the finished wine is not overly tannic. The rest of the varieties are stylistically on point. We harvested Tannat which is outstanding. It’s typically a highly tannic grape, but this crop is well-balanced and not overly tannic. We pressed it and it will be an amazing wine.
Salt Lick Vineyard is always our gem and it has performed really well again this year. Likewise, the crop from Certenberg Vineyard is top-notch. The Chardonnay, Merlot, and Petit Verdot grapes from Certenberg are all outstanding. We are also getting excellent Tannat from Nolan Creek Vineyard near Killeen.
This week we’re getting our first grapes from the Texas High Plains. We expect excellent fruit. I’m optimistic.
It has been a very good year for wine grapes in the Texas Hill Country. This is the kind of year where I’ll be extremely happy to showcase the vintage. It will be a standout. I’m eager for these wines to be ready to share with you. It will be Outstanding.
