From the Fields - Kevin Merrill

By Kevin Merrill, Santa Barbara County winegrape grower 

We started harvesting our vineyards on the east side of Santa Barbara County, including chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and pinot noir. Yields appear heavier than we anticipated, so that is good.

For our coastal vineyards, which are mostly chardonnay and pinot noir, we are still several weeks away from harvest. Due to the cool spring, we continue to fight mildew and botrytis issues that we fought all year long. The vines really took off because of the great rain we received. It made for great canopies in the vineyards, but it also made great mildew-growing areas. We are battling through it. We have been through it before. These issues are appearing up and down the coast, so growers are having to manage it everywhere. Yields look average or a little less.

We always used to pick chardonnay in the middle of October, and it looks like that’s what we’re going to do again this year. We’ve been spoiled the last few years picking around Labor Day, but that is not in the cards this time. We have enough people for winegrape harvest. We tend to go back and forth, trading employees with the strawberry industry, but it’s working out. I think by the time we really start picking, we will have enough people.

The grape market is terrible. There’s no market for open fruit, and many growers are faced with looking at making wine on their own or simply dumping the fruit on the ground, especially pinot noir. That’s our only option unless there is a disaster somewhere else. We’ve been through this before, but it’s been a challenging year. We were off to a good start, but with the mildew pressure and botrytis, and the market challenges, I will be glad when November arrives.

Related to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, we are still figuring out how to put meters on wells and cut back water use, which is going to be tough.