With harvest finally starting to wind down it’s time to reflect on another growing season, our 54th year of growing grapes. Our 2025 harvest started out waaaay back on August 30th with grapes for sparkling wine and finished with Calkins Lane Syrah on September 26th. In between we picked 565 tons of grapes, we laughed and cried, and we awarded our first annual dig out champion Major Award.

With all of our wine now resting comfortably in barrel we can take a collective breath while we try to remember what exactly we did over the last seven months of the 2025 growing season. And honestly, it was a pretty great year. We had a moderate and slightly early season notable for not having anything terrible happen—no huge heat spikes, no unseasonal freezes, nothing weird. It was all very normal and boring. We had a spot of rain during bloom which naturally reduced our yields a bit and resulted in a higher proportion of smaller berries. This translates into more concentration and intensity in the wine, and from what we’ve been tasting so far that’s definitely going to be a defining feature of this vintage. These are wines with great personality.

Speaking of things with great personality, I’d like to introduce the winner of our first annual dig our champion—intern Akshay Pawar! He did more tank dig outs than anyone else this year. Below is a photo of Akshay being presented this most coveted Major Award.

For those wondering what the heck a dig out is, after our Pinot noir is done fermenting we will drain off the flowing wine out of the tank and then dig out all of the still juicy skins for pressing. Dig outs are no joke—it is literally moving tons of grapes one pitchfork at a time—and this is a great reminder that harvest cannot happen without a LOT of assistance. We simply could not grow grapes and make wine without folks joining us from across the US and internationally to help make this product we all adore. Cheers to the 2025 harvest, everyone that made it happen, and to all of the joy it will bring to you!

Author: Gina Hennen, Winemaker 

4 images depicting the harvest