A crowd of Testarossa fans and employees gathered Sept. 29 to witness a tradition that marks a critical milestone in the lifecycle of any winery: a wrap on the growing season.
It’s been a wild, heat-driven and drought-stricken year, so this year’s Blessing of the Grapes marked one of the earliest ends to harvest ever in Testarossa’s 25-year history. Last year’s blessing by Jesuit priests, from whom Testarossa leases the winery property in downtown Los Gatos, occurred on Oct. 19.
Last week, bins filled with glorious golden bunches of chardonnay sat on the Testarossa crush pad, awaiting blessing. Winemaker Bill Brosseau grabbed a handful of the clusters of Cobb clone Chardonnay from Fogstone Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands. The clusters were inundated by thirsty honeybees, camouflaged nicely by the brown skins of the raisined grapes. Tightfisted and about 4 inches long, they looked like miniature corncobs.
“We’re still waiting on chardonnay from La Rinconada and Rincon tomorrow, and then we’re done. All the pinot noir came in before the middle of the month,” Brosseau said.
The first fruit in came from his family’s vineyard in Chalone, where the spring frosts ruined hopes of a decent crop. And that frost fallout continued to show its ripple effect throughout the vineyards that Testarossa harvests.
“Our total expected tonnage this year was 365 tons, but we only got about 300,” Brosseau said. “The biggest losses were in chardonnay, especially at Tondre and Sierra Mar.”
Complicating matters was a lengthy heatwave over the Labor Day weekend. Brosseau took the long view of a seasoned veteran.
“One of the things I ‘ve learned about Labor Day, is that if there’s a heatwave, it’s always stressful to compete for labor. We just let it ride. Going into harvest with a stressed out staff is counterproductive. Everybody else is scrambling to get grapes picked; the fruit comes in hot, the crushpad is hot, everything is hot. It’s no way to make wine. So, we waited it out. Everything settled down, it cooled down and then we had rain. In the end, we got fruit in great condition.”
Others weren’t so lucky.
“That heatwave killed us,” said winemaker Greg Perrucci of Perrucci Family Vineyard on Kennedy Road in Los Gatos. “We lost up to 50% of some of our blocks, with the syrah followed by the sangiovese taking the biggest hits.
“Bargetto’s Regan vineyard (in Corralitos) got hit hard, too. Our portion of the Regan pinot noir and chardonnay harvests are coming in next week, but well under our desired amounts. We are hopeful that he can pull some from Bargetto Winery to fill our needs, but we will take what we can. Merlot is probably three weeks out.”
Perrucci said he still had 33% of the malbec, 90% of the cabernet sauvignon and 100% of the cabernet franc left to pick.
“This is ideal weather for us to hang another 30 days,” he added. “The only question is, will the vines allow it after the heat stress? Some will not, and it looks like we are going to pull a couple more tons of cabernet sauvignon early in the week and the cabernet franc will come off by Friday. We are evaluating the rest day by day, but if we had to pick in the next week or so, it will still be a great result.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com