Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 18, 2023 - 14

A TRILOGY
of a
BY MAGGIE KRUSE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY KENDALL BUSBY
I
f the 2022 vintage were made into a book or
a movie, it would have to be a trilogy. Not only
was the harvest itself much longer than average,
but we dealt with a variety of weather incidents.
The first installment of the 2022 trilogy was
the spring and early summer period from bud
break to just after veraison, when the grapes soften
and turn color. The growing season commenced,
as the last two years have, with below average
rainfall. A moderate frost event came across all
of Sonoma County on April 12, impacting shoot
growth in most vineyards without frost protection.
The rest of the 2022 spring was cool and
plagued with high winds at bloom time, impacting
yields on some of our chardonnay and merlot
crops. We knew going into early summer that
this vintage was going to be average in size.
May through August were pretty ideal for grape
growing in Sonoma County. Warm weather
with limited heat spikes lead to some beautifully
uniform clusters with the potential for rich, intense
fruit flavors. Chardonnay picking commenced
on August 30. The grape sugars were low, acids
were high, and flavors were intense, which are the
perfect conditions for making a beautiful Jordan
Chardonnay. My excitement grew for this vintage.
Just when we started to think conditions were
too good to be true, the Labor Day weather forecast
predicted a 10-day period of extremely high
temperatures over 103 degrees Fahrenheit, including
four days over 110. While intermittent hot days
are not bad for grapes, the 10-day duration was
alarming. Knowing what was ahead of us, our team
sampled all of the chardonnay blocks left on the vine
HARVEST
The 2022 harvest delivers a variety of challenges
but an abundance of flavors
and all of the red blocks, which were still a few weeks
out from picking. We sampled everything for two
reasons: to see if we could pick any grapes that were
remotely close to being ready, and to get baseline
sugar levels on all the blocks before the intense heat.
We picked the few remaining chardonnay blocks
that were ready, but unfortunately, one-third of our
chardonnay production would have to endure the
heat. Even if a chardonnay block were ready during
the heat spell, we still couldn't pick it. We hand pick
all of our chardonnay at night but even the " low "
nighttime temperatures of 70 degrees Fahrenheit
were far too warm to pick.
Instead of harvesting during the heat wave,
we decided to wait and work with our growers to
rigorously irrigate the vineyards to try to minimize
any dehydration. This is where I would end the
first act of the harvest movie and begin part two.
As soon as the temperatures dropped, we sent our
samplers to survey the blocks. The chardonnay
blocks were ready to be picked! The crush pit
was back in action with trucks starting at 2 a.m.,
delivering three to four loads per morning. The red
grapes, post-heat, were a different story. We went
from high-acid, low-sugar fruit, to incredibly high
sugar-like, the highest sugars in Jordan history.
This is the point when we really had to make
picking decisions based not only on flavors; in a few
instances, we had to look at the quality of the clusters
and condition of the vine canopy. Fortunately,
there were only a few blocks where the canopy
and clusters looked tired and were ready to be
picked. The sugars were high, but the juice tasted
great with flavors of black cherry and cranberry.
14 THE LAND ISSUE
Jordan Wine Country Table - Vol. 18, 2023

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