California's harvest season seems to be getting earlier as Mumm starts picking for sparkling wines.
Mumm Napa is scheduled to kick off Napa Valley's harvest season today in what will be its earliest start on record.
Winemaker Ludovic Dervin said the sparkling wine specialist's first pick will be one day earlier than the previous earliest harvest kickoff in 1997 – a warm year that was considered one of Napa's greatest at the time.
"We had a pretty warm month in January (this year), and the vines started to push early," Dervin told Wine Searcher.
Mumm is traditionally one of the first Napa wineries to pick, because grapes for sparkling wine are picked earlier than for still wines. But most Napa grapes are ahead of schedule, said Napa Valley Grapegrowers director Paul Goldberg. The majority of Cabernet grapes are going through veraison, about a week earlier than usual.
Early reports are that the crop will be smaller in 2015, after record-size harvests two years in a row. It's way too early to talk about quality, but so far most of Northern California has avoided the kind of extreme weather events that cause trouble.
"People are cautiously optimistic about a great vintage," Napa Valley Grapegrowers executive director Jennifer Putnam told Wine Searcher. "It's been relatively smooth sailing so far for this growing season. I've heard some glowing reports about what's out there."
It's a big state, though, and some southern wine-producing areas like Paso Robles were just hit by the remnants of Hurricane Dolores. This would be a problem if Paso's grapes were further along, but they seem to be a bit behind Napa, at the perfect phase of development to enjoy a nice drink of water.
"We got 2.6 inches (6.6 cm) of rain on Sunday," said Jason Haas, general manager of Paso's Tablas Creek. "But we're so far away from harvest that we think its impact will be minor, and mostly positive. We're fully two weeks behind last year, and likely won't see anything significant before the end of August."
Realistically, that's true for Napa as well. Even though Chardonnay starts bubbling away in fermentation tanks this week, the important harvest season is still a month away.
"In Napa we're fortunate enough to be able to grow a wide variety of grapes," Putnam said. "But Cabernet is king. So the moment of truth for Napa is when the Cabernet starts to ripen. That's the end of August and early September."
In fact, that's the cautionary note for any consideration of harvest quality. Just because California had three years in a row of warm, dry weather throughout September doesn't mean it will happen again in 2015.
Weather forecasters are predicting an El Niño effect that could bring California the kind of heavy rain it needs to make a dent in the three-year long drought. Normally El Niño rains happen after harvest – but did you see California just got hit by the tail end of a hurricane? What's normal weather in the era of climate change?
"The big talk here is about El Niño and flooding," Putnam said. "People are trying to buy as much erosion-control material as they can. It's just so funny to hear people talking about having a hard time buying straw."
#NapaHarvest #CaliforniaVintage2015
Winemaker Ludovic Dervin said the sparkling wine specialist's first pick will be one day earlier than the previous earliest harvest kickoff in 1997 – a warm year that was considered one of Napa's greatest at the time.
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Mumm is traditionally one of the first Napa wineries to pick, because grapes for sparkling wine are picked earlier than for still wines. But most Napa grapes are ahead of schedule, said Napa Valley Grapegrowers director Paul Goldberg. The majority of Cabernet grapes are going through veraison, about a week earlier than usual.
Early reports are that the crop will be smaller in 2015, after record-size harvests two years in a row. It's way too early to talk about quality, but so far most of Northern California has avoided the kind of extreme weather events that cause trouble.
"People are cautiously optimistic about a great vintage," Napa Valley Grapegrowers executive director Jennifer Putnam told Wine Searcher. "It's been relatively smooth sailing so far for this growing season. I've heard some glowing reports about what's out there."
It's a big state, though, and some southern wine-producing areas like Paso Robles were just hit by the remnants of Hurricane Dolores. This would be a problem if Paso's grapes were further along, but they seem to be a bit behind Napa, at the perfect phase of development to enjoy a nice drink of water.
"We got 2.6 inches (6.6 cm) of rain on Sunday," said Jason Haas, general manager of Paso's Tablas Creek. "But we're so far away from harvest that we think its impact will be minor, and mostly positive. We're fully two weeks behind last year, and likely won't see anything significant before the end of August."
Realistically, that's true for Napa as well. Even though Chardonnay starts bubbling away in fermentation tanks this week, the important harvest season is still a month away.
"In Napa we're fortunate enough to be able to grow a wide variety of grapes," Putnam said. "But Cabernet is king. So the moment of truth for Napa is when the Cabernet starts to ripen. That's the end of August and early September."
In fact, that's the cautionary note for any consideration of harvest quality. Just because California had three years in a row of warm, dry weather throughout September doesn't mean it will happen again in 2015.
Weather forecasters are predicting an El Niño effect that could bring California the kind of heavy rain it needs to make a dent in the three-year long drought. Normally El Niño rains happen after harvest – but did you see California just got hit by the tail end of a hurricane? What's normal weather in the era of climate change?
"The big talk here is about El Niño and flooding," Putnam said. "People are trying to buy as much erosion-control material as they can. It's just so funny to hear people talking about having a hard time buying straw."
#NapaHarvest #CaliforniaVintage2015
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