2024 Harvest Update
Brian’s 2024 Harvest Update
September 30, 2024
The 2024 harvest at Talley Vineyards began on September 3 with a small pick from West Rincon Block 5, one of the best sections of that vineyard. This was 2 weeks earlier than our start in 2023 and one day later than we picked the same section in 2022. On September 4, we picked Rosemary’s Block 7, the original planting of Pinot Noir in Rosemary’s Vineyard, which my father planted in 1987. We made the strategic decision to harvest this block just before a heat wave which started the next day and persisted through September 11, when things cooled dramatically. So far, yields are running at between about ½ and 2/3 of normal and quality looks great. In many respects, it reminds me of the very successful 2022 vintage, which also saw low yields.
Overall, this has been an excellent growing season with cool weather persisting throughout the summer, until our September heatwave. We were generally unaffected by the major heatwaves that impacted most of the United States in July and August. We received just about 23 inches of rain this season, which is just above our annual average of 20 inches per year. This was the second year in a row of above average rainfall, and it really benefited the vines.
People often ask what explains yields that are above or below average. I attribute our low yields this year to a couple of factors. First, we had historically high yields in 2023, and in my experience, grapevines are somewhat alternate bearing, meaning that a high yield year is often followed by a lower yielding vintage. In addition, much of the potential crop for the year is dictated by the weather conditions during the spring and early summer of the previous year when a process called bud differentiation occurs. If you recall, 2023 was a historically wet year with about 50 inches of rain (more than double our average rainfall in the Arroyo Grande Valley) and we experienced consistently cloudy conditions during the spring and early summer.
A challenge this year has been intermittent power outages (almost daily from mid August through mid September) due to a combination of PG&E’s extremely sensitive equipment settings to mitigate wildfire risk and some aging and damaged wires in a very remote area to our east. PG&E appears to have resolved the issue and we’ve experienced less frequent outages since mid September.
The unseasonably cool weather we’ve experienced through most of September has resulted in intermittent harvest as we wait for sugars to increase and flavors to develop. This is a common occurrence and one of the reasons that the San Luis Obispo Coast experiences one of the longest harvest seasons of any winegrowing region in the world. Hot weather is predicted starting tomorrow (October 1) and I anticipate that this will dramatically increase the pace of harvest. As with most years, the vast majority of Chardonnay will be harvested in the month of October.
Join Our Crush Crew!
For the first time, we’re excited to share a little harvest tradition with you. For over 30 years, we’ve been creating custom crush crew t-shirts for our team. Each year, the theme naturally comes to us — from “Be Happy, Drink Chardonnay” and “Make Wine, Not War” to “2020 – Wines to Remember from a Year to Forget” and “The Year of the Wasp,” finally arriving at the year of “Banger Clusters.”
This year, we’ve been embracing the perfect pairing of wine and music. We sang “Lavender Haze” at the Secret Spot Dinner at the Lavender Farm, danced to the Molly Ringwald Project in our vintage band tees at Homecoming 1984, and enjoyed picnics with live music for the Adobe Encores. So, it only made sense for our t-shirt this year to be a Talley Vineyards Crush Crew Band Tee!
