Pine Ridge Vineyards, in the Stags Leap District, lies tucked beneath a ridge of pines, with a full view of the rugged palisades that speak to the dramatic geologic origins of our home and its world-famous Cabernet Sauvignon soils.
Download Fall 2020
While 2020 is a year no one will soon forget, we’re thankful for the rhythms of the growing season and the winemaking year that seem to be impervious to the uncertainty and disruption around us. As summer slips into fall in Napa Valley, the vines are healthy and strong, laden with clusters of plump berries that ripen day by day. Our team is out every morning, early enough to see the fog lift (if the marine layer came in the night before), checking sugars and acids, tasting fruit and chewing on berry seeds to gauge when to call the pick. It’s still a magical time of year, and equally reassuring.
That’s not to say we haven’t made adjustments in the winery to accommodate the protocols necessitated by physical distancing. We all wear masks, and we’ve developed a number of workarounds to keep our harvest crews safe and healthy. A prime example of these adjustments are the revised schedules of our day and night crews: usually they overlap by an hour or so, but now their shifts are scheduled with no overlap at all. In addition, we have one crew crushing grapes just outside the winery while another handles pumpovers inside, also with no crossover. Early on, we knew we wouldn’t be able to hire harvest interns from overseas as we normally do, but we have people from across the U.S. including New York and Las Vegas joining us this year. We miss the banter of foreign languages, but we’re happy to have the extra hands in the cellar.
I am thrilled that on a personal level, this is truly a harvest of note as it’s my son’s first! Eric Beaulac is an enology major at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, with one senior project to go before he graduates. He’s not working at Pine Ridge, but at another Stags Leap District Winery up the road with a 30-year-old winemaker and 27-year-old cellarmaster. Apparently the first decision they make each day is what music to play in the cellar. I remember those days. What more could a 22-year-old want?
Stay safe!
Michael Beaulac
Winemaker & General Manager
We’ve had a dry year here in wine country, in fact, it’s really been a drought. As a consequence, our farming in 2020 has focused on making sure the vines have had enough water to support the grapes. I suspected this might be the case early in the year due to the fact that we usually see a little sap flow when we prune in the winter: this year that wasn’t the case. We wanted to mitigate the lack of moisture by irrigating in February to make sure the crops had enough water for budbreak, and this certainly helped.
Continued dry weather through the spring produced canopies that were smaller than usual. Normally we hedge our vine canopies two or three times to keep green growth in check; we want to be sure the grape clusters get enough light and airflow around them. This year, because of the smaller canopies, we only hedged once. We also mowed and tilled the permanent cover crops we have in some of our vineyards. These crops compete with vines for moisture. While this can be beneficial in a wet year when we need to control the amount of water getting to the grapes, in a dry year like this one, the cover crops don’t leave enough for the vines.
The dry year coupled with a hot summer resulted in somewhat lower yields; the clusters and the berries themselves were a little smaller than usual. The good news is that small berries tend to be very concentrated and intense so I anticipate very high quality in this year’s crop. It may be counterintuitive, but drought years can end up producing fine vintages as long as one pays attention. I’m looking forward to the wines of 2020 and I think you will, too.
In past newsletters I’ve told you about our new plantings in the Rutherford Ridge Vineyard, two acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and two of Malbec. We harvested a little fruit from these vines in 2019, but this year we’re getting our first normal yields from these young vines. We’re also getting a small amount of fruit from new plantings in our Pine Ridge Estate Vineyard. Michael and his team will keep track of these new lots separately to see how they develop. After four years of coaxing these vines along, I can’t wait to see what they produce!
Gustavo Aviña
Viticulture Director
Explore our Stags Leap District estate vineyard in this private experience for up to six guests. Your wine educator will lead you on a walk through the vineyard and discuss our winemaking philosophy. Afterward, continue to enjoy the views with a seated tasting in our picturesque demonstration vineyard.
We invite you to take in the beauty of our estate gardens while enjoying a bottle of Pine Ridge Vineyards wine. This is an excellent option for our club members who are looking for an open space while touring wine country. We’ll provide the glasses and leave you to enjoy wine with your companions in this contactless experience.
