SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – This year's unpredictable weather created plenty of challenges for North Bay grape growers during harvest.
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Due to the weather, this year was one of the earliest seasons ever. In Sonoma County, only about 5% of the fruit is still on the vine right now.
Most are now in fermentation tanks awaiting barreling.
The season was first thrown off by the heat wave.
Actually last week, the first week of October, we picked the last 15 tons of syrah, one of the earliest seasons I’ve had in my career,” said Steve Dutton, with Dutton Ranch.
He just wrapped things up for the season. The forecast, as the weather whiplashed from heat to rain, made it difficult at times to plan ahead.
"One of our jobs that we do at Dutton Ranch is to be paying attention to that and then pivot and adapt to deal with it," he said.
Santa Rosa's Carol Shelton Wines also struggled with similar issues.
"We had to do a lot of planning because this was an intense one," said cellarman Mike Polkinghorn. "We got 50% of the grapes that we crush in a year, we got in one week."
According to the winery's owner and namesake, the volumes were way off, especially with one of their vineyards still recovering from the devastating Tubbs Fire.
"We usually get about seven tons of zin – we got like 0.75 tons of zin," said Shelton.
But despite the difficulties, Shelton and others are still optimistic that the quality of the wines are still up to par.
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