Harvest 2015 – The Cycle Continues
Occasio’s harvest season began in the early morning hours of August 18, the earliest in our six years of crafting wine. On that morning, our team handpicked a scant half-ton of Pinot Noir for what will become our Founder’s Rosé. Still cold in the dawn’s first light, we raised champagne-filled glasses to the sky to toast the new harvest, a tradition started by Paul Masson, passed down through Martin Ray, and continued at Occasio each year.
As I am writing this, we have harvested our Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Malvasia Bianca, Malbec, and Syrah. I anticipate all of our wines will be ready to lie down by the end of September, quite a change from the wet fall of 2011 when fermentations were still underway at Thanksgiving. Here are a few of my thoughts about this year’s harvest thus far.
The seeds to an early harvest were sowed last spring, when warm dry days led to an early bud break. Fortunately, there were no spring frosts, as our lowest temperature was 34o. Unfortunately, May was cool during the critical period of fruit set, leading to widespread shatter (poor crop yield) because some flowers remained unpollinated. Yields are down this year, even in our carefully managed vineyards.
After the unusually cool May, the rest of our growing season was ideal for rapid ripening. We had only three days where the temperature exceeded 100, and most days were in a moderate range from the mid-50s to the low 90s. In August, our highest temperature was 101, and the lowest was 56. Thus, ripening never shut down. During the day, skins ripened and sugar accumulated, and in the evening the vines metabolized the malic acid, a classic Bordeaux ripening cycle.
Historically, low diurnal temperature swings with moderate temperatures have produced great vintages. Looking at the harvest thus far, I think that 2015 will produce the finest wines this century – although there might not be much to go around.
