Quick Take
Ken Swegles, local viticulturist and owner of Rhizos Viticulture, predicts a stellar 2024 vintage. The pinot noir harvest is expected to start up to two months earlier than last year, promising an exceptional wine quality.
How is the 2024 vintage progressing in our local Santa Cruz Mountain vineyards? To get the answer to that question, I caught up with Ken Swegles, local viticulturist and owner of Rhizos Viticulture. The exciting news is that, with our unusually warm and sunny summer, 2024 is shaping up to be a great vintage, and pinot noir harvest will probably happen a full two months earlier than last year.
Our local vineyards are loaded with good, clean fruit thanks to a warm period during the growing season. “Compared to last year, when there was a lot more mildew because it was so cold and wet, this year the disease pressure is much lower. So most of our vineyards, especially pinot noir, have set a fantastic crop,” said Swegles.
Swegles also reported that veraison just started here last week, including at Ascona Vineyard. Veraison indicates the onset of grape ripening when red grape varieties including pinot noir change color from green to red berries. Usually the onset of veraison to harvest is a 30- to 70-day period, depending on weather conditions, grape varietal, vineyard microclimate, and so on.
Last year’s harvest was a good three weeks later than usual, as I reported last fall. This year, barring any major rain events or other disruptive acts of nature, the harvest looks to be on track to start in a matter of weeks. “I think our first ones are going to be around Labor Day weekend,” Swegles said of the first local vineyards he expects to harvest. “If it stays hot consistently like it has been, it’s going to be end of August for sure for some vineyards.” That’s about a two-month difference from last year in some vineyards.
The warmer temps and heat spikes this growing season have brought a few challenges. One of them is the need to irrigate more than normal. Another is sunburn on the grapes. “Here in the mountains there was a little bit of sunburn in a couple of vineyards, especially younger vineyards with fewer leaves to shade them,” said Swegles. But he and his team were able to mitigate the sunburn issues by irrigating more and not pulling leaves needed for shade. As a result, “we have less than 1% sunburn across 50 vineyards,” he said. Warmer regions, like Sonoma, have had more sunburn damage.
One of the biggest challenges is there is more fruit, especially pinot noir, than buyers for it. “One thing I would say about the pinot this year is that it’s over-planted in the Santa Cruz Mountains,” said Swegles, further explaining that people are cutting down on the amount of fruit they are purchasing to make wine.
One explanation is that there is more pinot noir than other varietals planted here in our AVA. “I think the last 10, if not 20, years, people have just been planting pinot. It’s the one thing people plant in this AVA. They like to drink pinot, so they plant that,” said Swegles. So our local market is pretty saturated for pinot noir. “We will definitely be grafting over some of our pinot vineyards next year,” Swegles said.
Even so, the vintage is setting up to be another great one for Santa Cruz Mountain wines. Said Swegles: “Hopefully this vintage stays as beautiful as it has been so far. Even a couple light rains wouldn’t be too bad. But I’m going to knock on wood and cross my fingers either way.”
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