2009 Harvest - A Quick One

We brought our last bit of fruit in for Fidelitas on October 16th after the hard freeze we had and I thought to myself, wow this was a quick harvest. Quick indeed with our first grapes coming in the door from Champoux and Red Mountain Vineyard on September 10th and our last grapes finishing on October 16th. Thirty seven days in total is about as quick as I can remember in my 22 year career in Washington starting in 1988. I have had years where we have started earlier, even before Labor Day, and I have years where we have ended sooner, but never thirty seven days in length. Warm temperature well into the 90's into the first half of September on several days moved things along quickly with sugars rocketing up quickly. The flavors also developed nicely as well thus the September. On October 11th and 12th temperature at night got into the low 20's almost everywhere with some temperatures reaching the high teen's. This absolutely did the canopy in and prompted a need to get the fruit in the door as soon as possible. It took us a few days to get it done but by Friday, October 16th we had brought everything in. We do not necessarily get a hard freeze this early every year but I once had a grower tell me that all grape growers should plan on having all their grapes ready to go by October 15th every year because a hard freeze can occur. Many wineries were caught off guard on being proactive and getting grapes harvested in a timely manner and because of this are still picking. As the fruit hangs out on the vine after the freeze I worry about the degradation of the fruit and the flavors the wines will take on. Hopefully, this will not affect too many of the wineries in the state.