Napa Sparkling Wine Harvest Begins ‘Right On Time,’ Having Successfully Weathered California’s Record-Breaking July Heat Wave
Winemaker Pauline Lhote Expects “An Outstanding, High Quality 2024 Crop” Following A Wet Winter and Warm Summer
Napa Valley, August 7, 2024 – Chandon California officially announced the start of Napa’s wine harvest today, with Head Winemaker Pauline Lhote calling the first pick of the 2024 season. Grapes for California’s sparkling wines are typically harvested earlier than those of still wines, and California’s record-breaking July heat wave drove late summer ripening across all of Chandon’s estate vineyards and a start to the Napa sparkling harvest nearly three weeks earlier than in 2023. Marking its 51st year as a pioneer of California sparkling wine, Chandon began harvesting grapes from its Yountville estate vineyard in the cool hours around midnight on Wednesday, August 7, bringing in 57 tons of Chardonnay from two different blocks, with 23 tons of Pinot Noir and 17 tons of Meunier to follow on Thursday. Gathering together with her winemaking team to begin harvest, Pauline noted, “Galileo’s famous quote ‘Wine is sunlight, held together by water’ perfectly sums up the 2024 Napa growing season. Plentiful water and sunshine are a classic recipe for exceptional California sparkling wines – and we had both in abundance this year!”
Coming off the heels of one of the longest and latest Napa Valley growing seasons in a decade in 2023, Pauline and her team are excited about the high quality of the 2024 harvest. While a notable heat wave around the 4th of July was a test for some of Napa’s vines, a wet winter and particularly high water basins in wine country helped protect the grapes and preserved the bright acidity and fresh fruit character that Chandon sparkling wines are known for. Maintaining more canopy cover than in previous years and ensuring shade for the grapes was also critical as the growing season progressed and temperatures rose. “Overall, it was an excellent season for Napa Valley grapes,” said Pauline. “Having farmed in California during multiple drought years, it was such a blessing to have another relatively wet year in Napa, and the fruit quality is outstanding. I’m excited to see such exceptional grapes starting to come in.”
In terms of grape yield this harvest, Pauline and Chandon Winegrowing Director Carlos Danti noted an average to smaller than average crop, with winter rains and warm soil temperatures allowing vineyards to grow well, with clean, small clusters. “While this year’s crop size is likely to be about average or a bit below, Chandon is extremely fortunate to be able to farm for quality, not quantity,” noted Pauline. “Whether the year is high yield or low, wet or dry, our goal is always to make sparkling wines of exceptional acidity and delicious quality.”
A pioneer of sparkling wine in California – and the first French-owned sparkling wine house in Napa – Chandon also continued to embrace innovation and change as it marked its 51st growing season. As part of its goal towards cleaner farming and reduced fossil fuels, the winery has installed solar panels in Carneros and Yountville to offset energy use and replaced its tractor fleet with electric vehicles. In addition to irrigating with 90% reclaimed water and enriching vineyard soil with more carbon, the winery also planted over 52 acres of drought-tolerant vines in Yountville and Carneros. According to Pauline, “Our goal is always to learn from the past and plan for the future. All of our new plantings, solar panels, and other farming updates at Chandon are the result of meticulous research to ensure we can continue growing the highest quality fruit even as weather conditions and climatic changes get less predictable.”
Having just unveiled a beautifully reimagined Chandon Home in Yountville this past fall, the winery is also excited to offer guests a new, hands-on Harvest at Chandon bookable experience this season (Sundays, August 15 & 18 and September 1 & 8). “Harvest is the most important time of year at Chandon and my very favorite time of year as a winemaker,” said Pauline. “This year visitors to our Home can walk the vines, pick the clusters at perfect ripeness, and sample the fruit that will become the 2024 Chandon harvest. It’s all the fun of winemaking without the midnight wake up calls!”
To learn more about Chandon, visit https://www.chandon.com or follow Chandon on Instagram @ChandonUSA.
About Chandon
Chandon is LVMH’s sparkling-wine Maison, founded in 1959 by Robert-Jean de Vogüé, a pioneer with the vision, courage and drive to redefine the category and craft exceptional sparkling wines in unexpected lands. Now spanning four continents, we have wineries in Argentina, California, Brazil, Australia, China and India, making ours the largest sparkling vineyard worldwide and the only domain on which the sun never sets. Drawing on a collaborative network of sixteen winemakers of seven different nationalities, we stand for new terroirs, innovative methods and an ever-curious outlook that happily unites our diverse lands and people. Chandon opens up a world of possibilities.
