Brian’s Harvest Update

August 25, 2026

We are now about halfway through the strange and extremely early harvest of 2026.  Harvest began on July 23 when we picked Pinot Noir for Au Bon Climat winery and first grapes to come into the Talley Vineyards winery were harvested 6 days later on July 29.  We will complete harvest in Rosemary’s Vineyard and all Pinot Noir in the Rincon Vineyard before September 1.  This is the earliest harvest in our 40 year history and is running about 6 weeks earlier than last year, which is consistent with what I’m hearing from other winegrowers, especially here in the coolest, most marine influenced parts of the Central Coast.

For a recap of what caused this, please see down below, our growing season update.  In a nutshell, winter temperatures were very warm with little chilling and we experienced a significant heat wave in March.  Beyond that, it’s been a pretty typical spring and summer with lots of fog and days in the mid to high 70s.

With respect to quality and production, it’s been variable.  So far, Chardonnay looks stellar across the board with Pinot Noir more variable.  Our original planting in Rosemary’s Vineyard, which was the first thing we harvested, looked and smelled beautiful in the fermenter and tasted great going into barrel.  Every lot of Rosemary’s Chardonnay has looked and tasted great.  Rincon Pinot Noir appears to be much more variable, just based on the appearance of the fruit going across the sorting table.  We’ll know more once we ferment and press off the wine.

As with every year, we strive to make the best wine we’ve ever produced.  I sincerely appreciate the passion and commitment of our vineyard and production teams to do their best to make that aspiration a reality.

Cheers!

Brian

Talley Vineyards on KSBY local news

We met with KSBY meteorologist, Vivian Rennie, to talk about this early season.

Brian’s Growing Season Update

June 30, 2026

One of the most common questions I get is, “how’s the crop look?” or “how is harvest shaping up?”  The answer is that 2026 will be truly unique in that it will very likely be our earliest harvest ever.  Our current projection is that we will start harvesting the week of July 13, which will be more than a week earlier than our earliest start ever, which was July 28, 2015.

The obvious questions that come to mind are: why is this happening and how will this affect quality?

Let’s start with the why.  Weather data indicates that this was the warmest winter on the Central Coast since record keeping began in 1895.  As a result, budbreak occurred much earlier than normal, in mid-January as opposed to early March.  Many vines never truly went dormant.  Add to that more spring rain than normal and record-breaking March temperatures, and the conditions were in place for a precedent setting early harvest.

As I reflect on how this might affect the quality of the wines we produce in 2026, I think about two things.  First, the most similar vintage that occurred within the last 20 years was 2015, which was also the last time we harvested grapes in July.  Wines from 2015 took a little while to come around, but are wonderful to drink now. 

The other thing I think about are the classic milestones during the growing season to see how those compare.  Here they are in Rosemary’s Block 7, our best vineyard block and what will be harvested first this year:

Typical budbreak:  March 15                                                      2026 budbreak:  January 25

Typical flowering:  May 20                                           2026 flowering:  March 5

Typical veriason:  July 4                                                 2026 veraison:  May 10

Typical harvest:  September 10                             2026 projected harvest: July 16

Typical days, flowering to harvest: 113           2026 projected days, flowering to harvest: 133       

A critical metric that many people monitor is the number of days between flowering and harvest and 100 days is the traditional benchmark for Pinot Noir in Burgundy.  More days is reflective of a cooler season and is generally considered desirable.  Our typical days between flowering and harvest is 113, due to our extremely cool summer weather as well as shorter daylength due to our more southern latitude.  As to why this would be further extended in 2026, I don’t have a theory for that.

Watch Brian’s Season Update

From June, 2026

Watch

Watch Eric’s Vineyard Update

From April, 2026

Watch