05 Nov Harvest 2025

By Brian Carter, Winemaker

I write this as I am up to my waist in grapes, enjoying my 48th harvest as a professional winemaker. Overall harvest 2025 has been a good one, with lots of good grapes which should translate to very nice wines. Not that things are going without a hitch, a few labor issues and some mechanical problems just to name a couple. Nothing to keep the grapes from rolling on in.

We started about the same time as past years, the first day of harvest being September 9th. That day we picked Tempranillo, Mourvèdre, Malbec, Graciano and Merlot. All nice and ripe. Well in fact, the Graciano might have been a little too ripe. Now, approaching the third week of October, we are 75% of the way there with just the grapes from Jim Willard’s Solstice vineyard yet to come in.

That would include his Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling and Sangiovese both for Rosé and red wine. The Solstice vineyard located in the central part of the Yakima Valley is in a cool site, just what I like, especially for the Sangiovese grape. In the next couple of days, I am heading over the hill to gather what I hope are the last samples of the year. My prediction is we will have all the grapes in before the end of October, which is normal.

In the meantime, we are punching down, checking brix, consolidating barrel lots and trying to do the much-needed maintenance on the equipment to keep it going until all this is over. The wines taste good, with nice fruit in the whites, nice fruit and color in reds. With pretty ripe flavors overall, my inclination is the 2025’s will be ready to drink a bit younger in age than normal.

Cheers! Brian