September 24, 1998
News: Harvest!When I asked Jim Fiolek, the master marketer for Zaca Mesa Winery about the harvest, he quipped, "Harvest! What harvest?"
El Nino has definitely had an effect on this harvest, and not just grapes too. The delicious corn from Arnie's corn patch west of Solvang (The Solvang Farmer) is usually available by the Fourth of July, but not this year-two weeks or so behind schedule, thanks to El Nino.
It seems, too, that tomatoes are ripening later this season than past years.
Zaca Mesa's Jim Fiolek told me that "what we're seeing this harvest is not as drastic as what we saw in '95.
"We're looking at half-ton and three-quarter ton to the acre yields in selected blocks [of our vineyards] which ordinarily would see three to three-and-a-half tons to the acre."
In 1995, crop levels, especially for varietals like pinot noir, were off as much as 70 percent.
Chris Whitcraft of Whitcraft Winery told me told me that "everything's ripening unevenly this vintage-even Hirsch Vineyard in Sonoma County." In other words, grape clusters can have both quite ripe berries and little green unripe berries cohabitating in the same cluster.
The effects of El Nino are not just specific to Santa Barbara County, but are most assuredly statewide.
(For a number of vintages, Chris Whitcraft has produced some extraordinary lots of wine from prestigious northern California vineyards like Hirsch on the Sonoma Coast and Olivet Lane in the Russian River Valley.)
Joe Kalina, a retired aerospace executive, has a small vineyard in Santa Ynez. Winemaker-proprietor Lane Tanner produces wine from his chardonnay fruit under the label, JK Vineyard, and she also produces syrah under her own label from his grapes.
Joe's vineyard in Santa Ynez has no uneven ripening in the clusters like so many vineyards have, but he told me with the three-quarters inch of rain he got from earlier this month he has lost about one fifth of his chardonnay crop due to mildew and rot.
Micro climates in the coastal valleys and back country of Santa Barbara County abound. There are subtleties to be sure. An obvious difference is the summer daytime temperature differential between Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley. On summer days when daytime highs reach a balmy 80 degrees in Santa Barbara, the Santa Ynez Valley can be experiencing blistering highs in the low 100s. The Santa Maria Valley is typically an average of twelve degrees cooler than Santa Ynez in the summer, and Lompoc is figuratively downright "freezing" because of the marine influence and fog-in average temperatures on par with Reims, in Champagne in France.
And inland lows are typically cooler than coastal lows.
JK vineyard in Santa Ynez is probably about ten miles from Santa Barbara Winery's Lafond Vineyard off of Mail Road and bordering on the Santa Ynez River.
There's little wonder, then, that Bruce McGuire, the winemaker at Santa Barbara Winery, can experience completely different ripening patterns in his vineyard and tells me they started harvesting their pinot noir from the winery's Lafond Vineyard between Buellton and Lompoc on Wednesday, September 16.
For some odd reason, Bruce tells me, "the pinot noir [one of the earliest ripening grapes] is even earlier this season, that the rain we had this month, didn't hurt too much, and the whites may be ready to start harvesting the first week in October." While the vintage-as-a-whole is running late this year, here you have the rather odd occurrence of pinot noir ripening earlier.
A lot depends on the weather from now on out. To get the grapes ripe, we need a lot of warm and breezy days. The heat gets the fruit riper and the wind minimizes potential rot.
Harvest Festival
The Santa Barbara County Harvest Festival is set for Saturday, October 10. Tickets are $60. For reservations or for more information, call the Vintners' Association at (805) 688-0881.
Bob Senn writes The Independent's monthly wine column, "Grapevine," lives in the Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
