Things have finally settled down to a slow purr in the winery, and this rainy afternoon is a great time to sit back and reflect on the 2025 harvest. So for those of you who like to read about these things, follow along!!!
We were cruising along this summer with what we were considering a pretty typical season, as far as the progress of the grape vines went, but then things seem to change right at the beginning of August – we had three or four weeks of extremely warm weather – – usually August is notably cooler than July, but not this year!! By the time the end of August rolled around, we were seeing the last aspects of grape ripening happen a week or two earlier than most years; indeed, we wound up with 2,500 heat degree days this growing season, which if you go back and look as the last dozen years (according to our temperature data taken at the Corvallis Airport), this is the highest heat total we have seen, about equal to 2021 and the warm years of 2014 and 2015 (those two years were great Pinot Noir years!!). People ask us about climate change and earlier harvests, but really, to my eye, there is not really an upward trend, but typically by the end of the season we are seeing 2,200 to 2,500 growing degree days. (See here if you need to freshen up your memory on growing degree days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_degree-day ).
So anyway, by the end of August, when we were just ready to start sampling grapes from the vineyard to see what the sugar and acidity levels were, we were absolutely shocked to see how far along ripening had gone – at the time of our first samplings, we were confronted with the data showing us that harvest was just days away! Yikes or double-yikes!!!
We scrambled to make sure everything was in order to commence harvest – we needed to get our picking bins ready, get the trailer hooked up to the tractor, and make sure we could arrange for a picking crew to be there when we needed it… And sure enough, we were out there early in the morning of September 3rd and picked Pinot Noir for Rosé and our Chardonnay. Our fruit was trucked to Corvallis where we are making all of our wine now, and we crushed and pressed both batches by the end of the evening on the 3rd.
The weather kind of changed a bit, it got slightly cooler, and we also had a few days of rain interspersed throughout September – not enough to interfere negatively with harvest, but enough to slow the whole harvest process down. So instead of what I feared, all of harvest taking one week to complete from start to finish, ripening slowed down and we had a much more manageable harvest lasting through the end of September. We picked Pinot Noir for our estate Pinot production on September 17th, and the last of the grapes were picked on September 24th: our typically slow to ripen Pinot Gris, which as some of you know, sits in a cool corner of our north block. In comparison, we have picked those PG grapes as late as the last week of October in previous years, so you can see how much earlier harvest was.
The overall harvest was a bit lower this year compared to 2023 and 2024. We believe the August heat had a lot to do with that. In fact, 95% of the vineyards we have information from noted a smaller harvest than typical this year. The flip side of having fewer grapes, is that the fruit was great quality, and flavors seemed to be well concentrated. So we are really, really looking forward to seeing how this vintage turns out. We recall in the early years of Bluebird Hill, 2014 and 2015 were quite warm, and they were fabulous vintages. So fingers crossed everyone and get some room ready in your cellars for the 2025 vintage! We are hoping to have the early bottlings of Rosé and Pinot Gris finished very, so it might be as soon as March when you will see our first 25’s come out – the Pinot and Chardonnay will like always, be bottled in 2026 at the earliest…
In addition to Oliver and his harvest crew, we must thank our loyal friends who helped us sort fruit in the vineyard and winery at harvest – Tom, Doreen, and Bruce, we would not have made it without you guys! On that note, we also did a bunch of bottling at the end of the summer and into September, and our friends, Tom, Iliana, Doreen, Joey and her Tom, Marvin, thank you for all that help.
But back to the harvest, and one way we sometimes talk about harvest and quality of grapes at harvest is by looking at the analytical data – the sugar and acidity (or pH). Sometimes, in some harvests, sugar might be a bit low, or acidity not quite there, and some winemakers will tweak the sugar or acid levels to get them to an optimal level – but this year both sugar and acidity levels were spot on, and no adjustments were needed or made to any of our Bluebird Hill wines. For you junkies who want to know the numbers, at harvest, Rosé came in at 22.4 Brix (Sugar percentage) and 3.24 pH; Chardonnay was 22.0 and 3.19; Pinot Noir was 23.6 and 3.50, and Pinot Gris was 22.9 and 3.23.
So here’s where we are as of today: The Rosé and Pinot Gris is finished, and in stainless steel tanks; they will age a bit over the winter and be bottled early in 2026. Both the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are in barrel, resting, we are waiting for the malolactic conversion (malic acid to lactic acid) to be completed, typically this process is completed by Thanksgiving time, we will need to make a measurement or two to check on these wines over the next few weeks. Bottom line is, we have high hopes for this to be an exceptional vintage!
That said, we want to remind everyone, as mentioned briefly just above, we did a whole lot of bottling in August and September, and we have a lot of great 2022 and 2023 wines for you to be tasting now: Mom’s, Barrel Select, and Flagship Pinots; Flagship and Reserve Chardonnays; Red Wine Blend and Syrah, and gone for quite a while but back now, our white wine blend, Duology. So, we hope you make plans to come see us this fall, taste through all these wines, buy some to bring home, and some for gift giving during the holiday season!! See you on the hill!
