Mother Nature controls much of what happens in agriculture, and wine grapes are especially finicky. Harvest timelines and fruit quality vary based on weather and peoples' decisions. The 2026 spring weather was most unusual and that's going to have an impact.
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| Shatter, some grapes are developing normally, some not |
Spring of 2026
Winter was doing its normal thing, that is giving us our year's supply of water. Then March came along, and it went dry. That's unusual, but not unheard of. What was not normal was the record heat. There were days in the upper 80s and low 90s. We set an all-time record high temperature for the month beating the old record from just two years ago. Climate change, anyone?
In the seasonal lifecycle of a grape vine March is when the vines go from dormancy to bud break, the first signs of life. This generally starts in mid-to-late-March depending on the grape variety and the microclimate.
The grape vines took off like it was summer. Early development was about three weeks earlier than average. Then we went from the hottest March ever to the wettest April in a long time. This hurt the flowering and pollination period. The result is low crop volumes from uneven berry development, called shatter, meaning the failure of grapes to develop after flowering.
Besides Sonoma and Napa, this is also affecting neighboring Mendocino and Lake Counties.
The Harvest
Wine grapes used in making sparkling wine are picked earlier at lower sugars compared to still wine. This year grapes were harvested in Santa Barbara County on June 30th, about a month earlier than normal and the earliest anyone can remember. On July 17th the Dutton Ranch in the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County picked pinot noir to be used by Schramsberg in their sparkling wine. This typically happens in early- to mid-August.
Obviously, it's going to be an early harvest, maybe a month earlier than normal. What will the ripeness, the sugar / acid balance, look like? The small crop means grapes can ripen quickly, so winemakers have to be watching carefully during August heat spikes.
The small crop is bad when you sell grapes by the ton, but overall for the industry this is good news. Less wine from 2026 will help reduce the current oversupply.
The Quality
What about the quality of this year's wines? Usually you get highly concentrated, flavorful wines from a small crop. Making fruit-forward, intense wines isn't something Sonoma and Napa normally has a problem with; we'll see how this works out. We are a few months from knowing what we'll get in the bottle. All regions and all grape varieties will not have the same issue with shatter in the vineyard. Early blooming grapes like sauvignon blanc and cabernet sauvignon may have taken the biggest hit. Chardonnay and pinot noir are also affected.
Sources:
bellador.com
pressdemocrat.com
winebusiness.com
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