The Roller Coaster Vintage

Cory Empting, the Managing Director at Harlan Estate in Napa Valley recently said in a podcast “You have to be open to what the vintage gives you. Sometimes the vintage doesn’t give you everything that you think you want.”

All of our reds are picked, and I’m not quite sure what to make of this vintage. Yields on Cabernet Franc are up 30%, despite losing 20-30% of their shoots to the frost on April 21st. The entire vineyard produced 85% more fruit this year over last, but that’s mostly due to our young Cabernet Sauvignon (unaffected by the frost) starting to hit its stride. We also had a vineyard block bounce back from spotted lantern fly damage that occurred in 2024. But what about the quality of the fruit?

April’s frost event was followed by a long stretch of cool and dry weather, making it difficult for the vines to wake up and start pushing growth. Once they did start growing, we entered a drought period which put more stress on the vines. This was followed by heat waves that scorched berries and caused some clusters to collapse. Come July, the vines needed a break, so we performed a rain dance. It worked. Problem is, it hasn’t stopped raining at inopportune times since then.

As a result of all the rain, the vines got too happy and continued to push green growth instead of focusing all of their energy towards ripening fruit. To top it off, an unexpected Nor’easter ripped through at the end of September and spat mist at us for 2 days straight. Whatever was left on the vine had enough, and I decided to pick the remainder of the vineyard that following Monday and Tuesday. What a roller coaster of a vintage.

All that being said, I am not sure if it’s a good thing or bad thing that Cabernet Franc pushed out 30% more fruit this year over last. Towards the end of veraison (when berries start to turn purple), I noticed an abnormal amount of green clusters next to dark purple ones. We suspect the green clusters are from secondary or adventitious shoots that were compensating for whatever was lost in April. We did our best to remove all of the green clusters once we hit 90% veraison. I hope we got most of it.

When tasting the fruit leading up to the day we picked, the skins were not as soft as I’d like. For sure they could have used more sunshine, but they needed to be picked ASAP because…too little, too late. While I’m very happy with the yields, I am being very careful with extractions. During fermentation, we extract flavors from the skins and the seeds by controlling the temperature and movement of the wine in tank. In a ripe year, we’re not too afraid of pushing extraction a little more given the ripe material. But, 2026 was not a ripe year. So, I’m fermenting at cooler temperatures and decreasing the frequency and duration of pumpovers. I’m thinking more about “infusion” rather than “extraction”. I’ve also completely eliminated punchdowns for fear of over extraction.

There is no such thing as a good vintage or bad vintage. Only easy or difficult. 2026 was difficult, and this year’s fruit was picked just shy of being “al dente”. The finished wines are lean and in the 12.5-13% abv range. I’m optimistic about 2026 because it will give us an opportunity to make something very delicate, elegant, and finessed. Which I think is perfect given the fragile nature of this vintage.

Anyhow, my palate prefers those “difficult” vintages that critics seem to write off, so maybe I’m in luck (for my palate, but not with critics). There’s a certain level of discipline, tension and gracefulness that I find when drinking wine from the difficult vintages of the world. We’ve got a long ways to go before the wines start to express themselves, but so far I’m happy with the balance on the few lots that just finished fermentation. Will we achieve the gracefulness that I’m hoping for? As always, only time will tell. But, I’m hoping that 2026 gave me everything that I didn’t know I wanted.

Adam