August 26th, 2015

That's right, 2Plank Vineyards has officially kicked off harvest, and there's no sign of slowing down. The first pick was Estate Grown Roussanne, planted at an average elevation of 1100ft and hand harvested on the early morning of August 1st. These grapes came in at 23.5brix (brix is a measurement of sugar), which is optimal for a fuller and richer style of white wine.

“We predict our red varietals, such as Syrah and Grenache, will reach full ripeness towards the end of this week, meaning one of our earliest harvests to date”, says Jason Wimp, co-founder  2Plank. “We’ve already deployed the bird netting, so now it’s the yellow jackets that we must fight off in order to preserve the fruit.” 

Since the 2Plank Vineyard is farmed with sustainable practices in mind, no biosynthetic chemicals are used to warn off predators. This poses an added challenge when harvesting grapes because the high sugar concentration attracts a number of pests. To combat this issue, we employ old-school farming techniques such as cover cropping, which acts as a habitat for beneficial insects such as lady bugs. Additionally, the grapes are harvested in the very early morning, when the fruit is the coldest and the bees are at bay. This earth-minded farming approach not only respects the land used for cultivating grapes, but it also reflects our winemaking philosophy and helps to increase the quality of the wines.

As with every year, there are always challenges and potential threats above our human control, such as pressures brought on by Mother Nature. According to many sources, this year’s harvest presents a looming risk of El Nino in the fall, which could potentially damage the varietals needing longer hang time. Assistant winemaker Mike Szymczak says, “It’s during this final stage of ripening when the grapes are most absorbent, and heavy rain does the most damage.” Fortunately, the warm winter and spring temperatures gave rise to an early bud break, which promoted a quick and early growing season. He predicts “as long as temperatures stay consistent, we’ll have the fruit harvested long before any threat of rain.”

As grapes are starting to trickle in throughout the state, yields are appearing to be slightly lower than in previous years. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. There’s a common belief that lower yields can translate into higher quality wine. As long as the weather stays consistent for the remainder of August, we can expect this year’s red wines to have ripe acidity and loads of concentration.

Cheers!