2000: A Scary Harvest

Autumn afternoons are fragrant in California’s wine country. The cool air along Russian River back roads is permeated with the scents of ripe apples and fermenting wine. The golden light plays magically on a sea of vines where the season’s last grapes ripen to perfection, purple-black Cabernet Sauvignon and yellow Chardonnay.

Wait a minute. Chardonnay? That ain’t right.

At this time of year, it’s normal to see some Cabernet still on the vine, developing those last little nuances of ripe flavor and soft tannin. But all the Chardonnay should have been harvested at least a month ago.

That’s the story of vintage 2000, especially in California’s cooler coastal areas: disorderly ripening and barely enough heat to get the job done. For many growers, the last vintage of the 20th century will be remembered as the season that ran out of gas.

For the first time in living memory, the question is not how good the wines will be, but how many tons of grapes won’t make it over the finish line.

For producers who got their grapes in while the weather was still warm, though, it looks to be a good vintage. Great? Probably not, except perhaps for Cabernet Sauvignon from low-yielding vineyards in the Napa Valley (which always does well in cool years).

But time will tell, and I’m looking forward to tasting the young wines in a few months. Certainly, anyone who buys bottles from vintage 2000 just for the magic number will coincidentally get some pretty good wines in the bargain.

Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot look to be excellent in a Bordeaux-type way, with solid California power but also the promise of cool-year elegance. Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir look good, too, along with Chardonnay from relatively warm areas in the Russian River and Anderson valleys, Carneros and Santa Barbara County.

The only mystery is the Mystery Grape itself. Zinfandel seems to have performed erratically this year. “Zin is always odd, but this year it’s even odder,” says a weary Phyllis Zouzounis at Mazzocco Vineyards in Dry Creek Valley.

“Before all of the grapes were finished turning color, we were already getting some raisining. Some of the berries were becoming dehydrated, and the sugar was going higher. But in the same clusters fruit was just beginning to ripen. Lots of sugar but low pH and high acids. Way out of balance. That happens in Zin, but this year seemed more intense.”

Why? She shrugs. “My only guess is the early spring and two big heat waves. Zin is so much more affected by heat than other varieties. The summer began really hot, in the high 90s with no cool nights for two or three weeks. That rattles the plants, throws them off their cycle. They think it’s time to ripen.”

The proof is in the wine, of course, and normally it’s not worth the trouble to taste until spring, after primary and malolactic fermentations are complete and the new wine has coalesced to some degree.

But there are indications of quality and character for those who know where to look. Experienced growers usually have a sense of general quality by August, when the grapes turn from hard green marbles into juicy, succulent berries showing true varietal color. Winemakers who venture into the vineyards (as all the best ones do these days) also form an impression of fruit quality that their experience translates into prognosis for the wines.

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The 2000 vintage started out with an early, wet spring. By the time the vines were beginning to leaf out, the ground throughout California was fully saturated. Moderate weather through late spring allowed the vines to set the largest crop since the bumper vintage of ’97.

Then fierce heat during the second week of June put everything slightly off-kilter and raised the possibility of an early harvest. The summer that followed was moderate, though, with temperatures well on the cool side, especially in normally warm locations like the Napa, Alexander and Dry Creek valleys.

By veraison (when the grapes change color and begin the final push toward ripeness), things appeared to be going along swimmingly. Then another heat spike in early September again put picking crews on notice.

In October everything changed yet again. The high-pressure cell that normally sits off the California coast all summer began to cave in, allowing the North Pacific to begin asserting its more dynamic winter persona early. The mercury nose-dived. Prudent wine producers recalled a similar pattern from the ’98 and ’99 vintages and saw the potential for trouble in a long, cool season. Many reduced their crops for timely ripening and got the fruit in as soon as they could.

Russian River Valley winemaker Merry Edwards harvested her Pinot Noir in three days in mid-September. What really worried her was the possibility that sudden heat would ripen everything at once, making it difficult to get all the fruit at optimal ripeness. “After ’99 I was gun-shy, because everybody got caught with their pants down,” says Edwards. “I got nervous when the weather heated up over Labor Day weekend. I made some changes in picking arrangements, and even bought some new tanks.”

Virtually all Pinot Noir producers, and most top-end Chardonnay producers, brought in beautiful fruit by late September, leaving Cabernet Sauvignon and some Chardonnay growers to sweat.

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In Napa Valley’s Stag’s Leap District, Chimney Rock winemaker Doug Fletcher breathed a sigh of relief late last week as he turned the last of his Cabernet grapes into burbling purple soup.

“A week ago no Cab had been picked, but all the Pinot guys were going to Hawaii,” said Fletcher. “It was projected for an early harvest, and that’s how it started. But then we just sat. The Cabernet just didn’t get ripe.”

A seasoned Napa Valley veteran with nerves of stainless steel, Fletcher put his faith in the vines, even in the face of mid-October rain. “If you’re growing Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Noir it’s much more risky,” he says. “But Cabernet producers have a bit more leeway. In our case the rain flattened out the sugar accumulation for a week. But we were pretty much there sugar-wise anyway, just waiting for the tannins to soften and the seeds to get brown. So for us it was kind of a godsend.”

Napa Valley grower David Abreu, whose clients include stellar producers such as Araujo, Spotteswood, Bryant, Harlan and Colgin, credited balanced vines and low yields for allowing him to pick relatively early (in mid-October) at optimal, uniform ripeness. “The tannins are so soft this year,” he says. “They’re delicious!”

Praising the 2000 season as Bordeaux-like, Abreu notes, “It was late. But when you think of our great, great vintages, the growing season is always stretched out. You have to be able to sit through heat, rain or cold. They go through this every year in Bordeaux.”

As of last weekend, conditions were similar throughout the coastal wine regions that produce California’s best wines. “We were screaming along and it stopped,” says Santa Barbara County winemaker Jim Adelman. “It got really cold for three weeks and everything came to a screeching halt.”

As the proprietor of Makor Wines and production winemaker for Au Bon Climat, Qupe, Vida Nova and Il Podere, Adelman deals with a wide variety of top-level Santa Barbara County vineyards, including the celebrated Bien Nacido. He reports pretty much the same story in all of them.

“The thing that sticks out is how out of order everything is,” he says. “Usually we’re doing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at the same time. Now Chardonnay’s on the same time frame as Merlot.”

Reflecting on the likelihood that wineries will be rejecting a lot of Chardonnay as under-ripe, he added, “If you were playing the spot market right now you could probably get Chardonnay for about $500 a ton.”

Why is there Chardonnay still unpicked at this point in the season? One word: Greed. It’s been known for centuries that the best wines come from small crops. Fewer bunches per vine means more of the vine’s energy going into each bunch, resulting in more concentrated juice and more intense and vibrant wines.

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However, with Chardonnay still firmly in the generic white wine slot worldwide, and with wineries paying $2,500 a ton or more (sometimes much more) for Chardonnay grapes, there is strong temptation to over-crop. A bigger crop is money in the bank--assuming the fruit gets ripe.

The problem is that bigger crops ripen more slowly, especially in a cool year. In a season with a weak finish, like this one, there’s the risk of not being able to ripen the fruit sufficiently to command top dollar. Or, conceivably, any dollars at all, as consultant Edwards points out. “I’m starting to get calls from people who are looking for another home for their Chardonnay grapes,” she says. “This is where growers learn not to overcrop.”

Whether anyone will take the lesson to heart remains to be seen. After all, like the World Series, the harvest isn’t over until it’s over. Maybe Mother Nature will come up with one last heat wave that will ripen all that over-cropped Chardonnay to perfection--proving once again that in wine growing, as in baseball, ya don’t know nothin’.

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Smith is writer-at-large for Wine & Spirits Magazine.