Harvest 2026 winds down as it began, with excellent quality but yields down 30% vs. 2025
While our worst fears -- that yields would be off by something like 50% -- haven't come to pass, we're still seeing crop levels down significantly. At least quality looks great.
As the clock winds down on the 2026 harvest, the bigger picture is coming into better focus. While a few varieties (most notably Syrah, up 3% and Marsanne, down 8.6%) saw yields close to those of 2025, my hopes that our later grape varieties would change the narrative don't seem to have come to pass. With our last pick completed at the end of last week, Mourvedre came in at 34.7 tons, down 35.3% from last year's 53.7 tons. Grenache, at 73.1 tons, actually came in a little above where I was worried it would be a few weeks ago, but is still down 36.2%. Grenache Blanc was down 35.1%. We won't have a full accounting of where we finished for another week or so, but with something like 95% of harvest in, there aren't many significant blocks left still unpicked. My estimate is that we'll finish at something like 270 tons off the estate, which would be down about 30% compared to 2025.
On the positive side, we're becoming more convinced than ever that this year will produce memorable wines. The colors on the reds are deep and vibrant. The flavors are intense. The measurable numbers look great. And it's not like we're totally bereft of grapes. We've harvested some 420 tons between our estate and the grapes we purchase for the Patelin de Tablas and Lignée de Tablas wines. But it's been a very slow build to this number, which has exacerbated the feeling that things are light. This week is our tenth week of harvest. That's an average of 42 tons per week. Last year we had three weeks that topped 80 tons, including our busiest-ever week where we topped 140. And that was itself a pretty spread-out harvest. In a compressed year like 2024, we had a four-week stretch where we brought in 447 tons, or more than we're likely to do in 11 weeks this year. Our harvest-by-week graph so far shows the slow, steady pace:
Meanwhile, in the vineyard, it's getting harder and harder to find a block with fruit on it. One of the few grapes still out is Terret Noir, which has been taking its time to come in this year but is looking great. These photos are from some head-trained vines where we grafted Terret Noir onto Tannat trunks last year. It will be a competition between Terret Noir and Counoise as to who gets the honor of being the last red pick this year:
As for whites, the only grapes still out are Roussanne. As is often the case with this notoriously finicky grape, we're finishing up with successive picks through blocks that we've already harvested at least once. That's because Roussanne is very prone to virus, and the more virus that the vines have, the slower they ripen. But they're getting there, and in the absence of any threatening weather we're fine letting them come in little by little. You can see the classic russet shading on this cluster that we picked today that gives the grape its name:
All the different picks mean that we've blown through the available lines on our harvest chalkboard. The cellar managed to use our new chalkboard (which we never got fully prepped because harvest got such an early start) to make a third column, which Sadie was very interested in:
Although the work in the vineyard is winding down, it's still prime time in the cellar, and in fact Chelsea commented to me that it's just the last couple of weeks that it finally felt like full harvest to her. Each day sees us measuring fermentations in every barrel and every tank. We're also draining tanks that have reached the level of extraction we want, and then pressing off the berries. That work, plus the punchdowns, pump-overs, and Pulsair cap management that all our fermenting red tanks get twice daily, will go on for a few weeks even after we're done picking. In the below photo you can see us draining a Mourvedre open-top fermentation tank. I wish they would invent smell-o-vision because the aromas from this tank as it was draining were amazing. The color is great, too:
Meanwhile, in the vineyard, things are starting to look like fall. The colors of the vines are starting to move to oranges and yellows, which is emphasized by the lower sun angles:
One more thing is making it feel like fall. We have our first lambs of the season! Regenerative Specialist Erin Mason and Shepherd Ivan Morales made the decision to introduce the rams a couple of weeks earlier this year so that the lambs were a little bigger when they were ready to move onto grass. Their high-pitched voices are now a regular backdrop on our tasting patio:
The one thing that hasn't felt like fall has been the weather. It's been warm for most of the last two weeks, with average highs in the 90s. That warm weather has been good for giving the last few lingering blocks a little nudge over the finish line (and, after all, it's still less than a week into October). But it looks like we may be nearing the end of this late-summer weather. Today's ag forecast suggests that our heat wave is likely to peak today, moderate over the weekend, and perhaps even shift into our first fall showers by early next week.
We've been at this for two and a half months. We're ready.