Video: 2018 Harvest & Winemaking Process

Our 2018 har­vest start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 5^th when we picked and processed our first lot of Sauvi­gnon Blanc. Over­all, the grapes this year matured lat­er in the sea­son than the past few years, so the only oth­er vari­etals we brought into the win­ery that month were Viog­nier and Chardonnay.

Out of the 150 acres of grapevine we grow, 81% are red wine grapes. So, for us, har­vest tru­ly kicked off on Octo­ber 12^th when we start­ed the red wine pro­duc­tion. Our first day con­sist­ed of pro­cess­ing Syrah, with Caber­net Sauvi­gnon, Grenache Blanc, Mer­lot, Grenache, Counoise, and Mourve­dre to fol­low. It was an intense month of har­vest­ing grapes and pro­cess­ing the fruit. There were many days where we processed 10+ tons of grapes, with the busiest day a record 26 tons of Grenache! The final day of pick­ing fruit was Novem­ber 17^th and we were able to get all of our fer­menter bins pressed off by Novem­ber 30^th. We are tru­ly excit­ed by the qual­i­ty, and quan­ti­ty, of fruit we were able to har­vest this year and look for­ward to shar­ing these wines with you in 2019 and 2020!

After har­vest wrapped up, we focused on our vineyard’s soil, incor­po­rat­ing bio­dy­nam­ic preps and plant­i­ng cov­er crops (most­ly vetch, peas, and legumes). We then received a fair amount of rain­fall the first week of Decem­ber, and our estate is already look­ing more green!

Watch our wine­mak­er, Steve Beck­men, dis­cuss har­vest time in the vine­yard and win­ery, and take you step by step through the wine­mak­ing process for both our white wines and red wines.

Click here to learn more about the four wines released this quar­ter and watch Steve present each wine – how it was made, its fla­vors and aro­mas, sur­pris­ing fun facts – for the very first time.

Want to see more of our videos? Check out the Beck­men Vine­yards YouTube chan­nel to view more videos from our win­ery and vine­yard, as well as videos about our new wine releases.